Uttarakhand State Guide: History, Government, Elections, Exams

Overview

Uttarakhand is a Himalayan state in northern India, created on 9 November 2000 out of the hill districts of Uttar Pradesh. It was the 27th state of the Union and was first called Uttaranchal; the name was changed to Uttarakhand on 1 January 2007. Its official area is 53,483 sq km, which makes it the 19th-largest state, and about 86 per cent of that land is mountainous. It borders Tibet (China) to the north, Nepal to the east, Uttar Pradesh to the south and Himachal Pradesh to the north-west.

The state is built from two old cultural regions, Garhwal in the west and Kumaon in the east, and its 13 districts are split between them. Garhwal was the land of the Panwar kings and Kumaon of the Katyuri and Chand kings. Both regions appear in old Sanskrit texts as Kedarkhand and Manaskhand, and the state is often called Devbhumi, the "land of the gods", because of its many temples and pilgrimage routes.

Three facts explain much of what Uttarakhand is known for. First, two of India's most important rivers rise here: the Bhagirathi and Alaknanda meet at Devprayag to form the Ganga, and the Yamuna starts near Yamunotri. Second, the state has Nanda Devi, the highest peak wholly inside India, and many glaciers and national parks. Third, its politics grew out of a long hill-people's movement, the Uttarakhand statehood agitation, which turned violent at Rampur Tiraha on 2 October 1994 and ended with the Uttar Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2000.

Dehradun is the seat of government and is usually described as the interim (temporary) capital. A summer capital at Bhararisain, near Gairsain in Chamoli district, was notified in 2020 (reported). Hindi is the main official language and Sanskrit is the second official language. Census 2011 counted 10,086,292 people, with a sex ratio of 963 and literacy of 78.82 per cent.

This guide does not name sitting office-holders; for the current Governor, Chief Minister and others, see Current Affairs.

For exam preparation

• Uttarakhand was formed on 9 November 2000 as the 27th state, under the Uttar Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2000.
• It was called Uttaranchal until it was renamed Uttarakhand on 1 January 2007.
• Area is 53,483 sq km; Census 2011 population is 10,086,292.
• It has 13 districts in two divisions, Garhwal (7 districts) and Kumaon (6 districts).
• Dehradun is the interim capital; Bhararisain (Gairsain) was notified as summer capital in 2020 (reported).
• Nanda Devi (about 7,817 m) is the highest peak in the state.

History

Uttarakhand's history is the story of two hill kingdoms, Garhwal and Kumaon, that held out against the plains for more than a thousand years, then fell to Nepal's Gorkha army in the late 1700s and passed to the British in 1815. After 1947 the hills stayed inside Uttar Pradesh for half a century, until a long agitation produced a separate state in 2000. Dates for the early dynasties vary between books; where sources disagree, this section says so.

Ancient period: Kedarkhand and Manaskhand

The Puranas, especially the Skanda Purana, divide the central Himalaya into Kedarkhand and Manaskhand. Kedarkhand is the land of Kedarnath and corresponds to Garhwal. Manaskhand, named after the Manas (Mansarovar) region beyond the passes, corresponds to Kumaon and is also called Kurmanchal, the "land of the tortoise incarnation".

Written records of actual rulers start later. The Kuninda people, reported to have held parts of the hills from about the 2nd century BCE, followed an early form of Shaivism and traded salt with western Tibet. Ashokan edicts at Kalsi (in Dehradun district) show that the area was in touch with the Mauryan empire and with early Buddhism.

In the 8th century the reformer Adi Shankaracharya is traditionally said to have set up the monastery at Joshimath and revived the shrines of Badrinath and Kedarnath. This is tradition, not a dated record.

The Katyuri kingdom

The first large kingdom of the hills was the Katyuri dynasty. Sources differ on its dates; most place it from about the 7th century to the 11th century CE, and one reference names Vasu Dev as founder around 700 CE. Its capital was Kartikeyapura, identified with the Baijnath area in the Katyur valley of Bageshwar district. It is reported to have ruled Kumaon and parts of Garhwal before breaking into smaller principalities.

The Chand kings of Kumaon

The Chand dynasty emerged in Kumaon after the Katyuri state fragmented. Som Chand is named as the founder, with Champawat as the early capital; the dates of his reign differ between sources. One reference says it was consolidated by the 15th century under Ratna Chand. The capital moved to Almora, which was founded in 1563. The best-known Chand ruler is Baz Bahadur Chand, who is reported to have taken the Tibetan fort of Taklakot in 1670, the first time an Indian ruler held that stronghold. By the 18th century factions and money troubles had weakened it.

The Panwar (Parmar) kings of Garhwal

Garhwal, the "land of forts", was once a patchwork of about 52 small chiefdoms, each with its own fort (garh). Tradition credits Kanak Pal, a prince who married into the ruling house at Chandpur Garhi, with founding the Panwar (Parmar) line, with a date of 823 CE given in one source; this early date is traditional. The decisive step was the unification of the 52 chiefdoms by Ajay Pal, reported as the 37th ruler. One source dates this to 1358 and another to the 15th century, so the date is best treated as "14th to 15th century". The capital moved from Chandpur to Devalgarh and then to Srinagar (on the Alaknanda), where it remained until 1804.

Gorkha rule

In the late 18th century the Gorkha state of Nepal expanded west. Gorkha forces took Almora and Kumaon in 1790 to 1791, ending the Chand state; the last Chand ruler, Mahendra Chand, fled. Garhwal held out longer and fell in 1804, when its king Pradyumna Shah is reported to have been killed in battle at Khurbura near Dehradun. Gorkha rule lasted about 24 years in Kumaon (1791 to 1815) and about 11 in Garhwal, and is remembered locally as a harsh period (reported).

The Anglo-Nepalese War and the Treaty of Sugauli

The East India Company went to war with Nepal in 1814. A British column under Colonel Nicolls entered Kumaon through Kashipur and took Almora on 26 April 1815. The war ended with the Treaty of Sugauli, drafted on 2 December 1815 and ratified on 4 March 1816. Nepal gave up all land west of the Kali river, which meant Kumaon and Garhwal, as well as the Terai and Sikkim; the Kali became Nepal's western boundary. Disputes over which stream is the true Kali, and over the Kalapani area, still continue.

The British did not return all of Garhwal to its king. Eastern Garhwal (the Pauri side) and Kumaon were annexed, and Sudarshan Shah, son of Pradyumna Shah, was given the western part with a new capital at Tehri, creating the princely state of Tehri Garhwal. Jaunsar-Bawar was brought into Chakrata tehsil in 1829.

British Kumaon and Garhwal

Kumaon was set up as a non-regulation province, administered by a Commissioner with simpler procedures than the regular provinces. George William Traill, J.H. Batten and Henry Ramsay held that post in turn over roughly seven decades, and by 1891 districts were reorganised and named after their headquarters, notably Nainital and Almora. The Garhwal Rifles, raised in 1887 as the 39th (Garhwal) Regiment of the Bengal Army, built a long military tradition with a regimental centre at Lansdowne. Two of its soldiers, Darwan Singh Negi (1914) and Gabar Singh Negi (1915, posthumous), won the Victoria Cross in the First World War.

During the 1857 uprising, people of Kumaon rose against the Company under leaders such as Kalu Singh Mahara (reported). The region later became part of the United Provinces. Tehri Garhwal stayed a princely state under the Panwar line until 1949.

Freedom movement

The hills had a strong tradition of local protest alongside the national movement.

• Kumaon Parishad, 1916. A regional body founded to raise local social and economic issues; it later fed into the Congress.
• Coolie Begar movement, January 1921. Villagers were forced to carry officials' baggage without pay. At the Uttarayani fair in Bageshwar in January 1921 the unpaid-labour system was publicly rejected. The leader is usually named as Badri Datt Pandey (not separately verified here), and the movement is remembered as a peaceful victory.
• Peshawar, 23 April 1930. Troops of the Royal Garhwal Rifles led by Chandra Singh Garhwali refused to fire on protesters in Peshawar's Qissa Khwani Bazaar. It is remembered as a rare refusal of orders by Indian soldiers in the civil disobedience movement.
• Tehri praja movement. Sridev Suman, who founded the Tehri Rajya Praja Mandal in 1939, was jailed in December 1943, began an indefinite fast on 3 May 1944 and died on 25 July 1944 after 84 days. Tehri Garhwal then merged with India on 1 August 1949 and was placed in Uttar Pradesh.

After 1947: the hills inside Uttar Pradesh

The hill districts stayed in Uttar Pradesh. Steep terrain, small farms and scarce jobs made their needs different from the plains, and forest policy became the first big public issue.

The Chipko movement

Chipko (literally "to hug") was a non-violent forest-protection movement of the Garhwal hills. Chandi Prasad Bhatt had founded the Dasholi Gram Swarajya Sangh in 1964 to support forest-based village industries. After the damaging Alaknanda flood of 1970 and a 1973 decision in which the forest department refused the Sangh ten ash trees but allotted 300 to an outside sports-goods company, protests began near Gopeshwar. The best-known act came on 26 March 1974 at Reni village, when Gaura Devi and a group of about 27 women stood in front of trees marked for felling and stopped the contractors. A government inquiry sided with the villagers, and in 1980 a 15-year ban was imposed on felling green trees in the Himalayan region above 1,000 m. The movement received the Right Livelihood Award in 1987 and became a model for later environmental movements.

The statehood movement

The Uttarakhand Kranti Dal (UKD) was founded in 1979 to press it. The turning point came in 1994, when the Uttar Pradesh government decided to apply 27 per cent OBC reservation in government jobs. The hills had very few OBC residents (under 2 per cent), so people feared losing jobs and seats, and the protest turned into a demand for a separate state. Police fired on demonstrators at Khatima and Mussoorie, and on 2 October 1994 at Rampur Tiraha near Muzaffarnagar; at least six activists died at Rampur Tiraha, and the toll is reported differently in different accounts. There were further incidents at Dehradun, Kotdwar, Nainital and Srinagar. On 15 August 1996 the Prime Minister announced from the Red Fort that a hill state would be created.

Formation, 2000

The Uttar Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2000 created the state, and it came into being on 9 November 2000 with Dehradun as its interim capital. A bill moved in 1998 had used the name Uttaranchal, which the Act kept. The state's name was changed to Uttarakhand with effect from 1 January 2007 after a 2006 law, restoring the older regional name. It took over all 13 hill and foothill districts, including the plains districts of Haridwar and Udham Singh Nagar.

For exam preparation

• The Garhwal chiefdoms were unified under the Panwar (Parmar) dynasty; the capital was at Srinagar until 1804.
• The Chands ruled Kumaon; Almora was founded in 1563 and became the Chand capital.
• Gorkhas took Kumaon in 1790 to 1791 and Garhwal in 1804; British forces took Almora on 26 April 1815.
• The Treaty of Sugauli was drafted on 2 December 1815 and ratified on 4 March 1816; it fixed the Kali as the western limit of Nepal.
• The princely state of Tehri Garhwal merged with India on 1 August 1949.
• Chipko's best-known event was at Reni village on 26 March 1974; the statehood firing at Rampur Tiraha was on 2 October 1994.

Geography

Uttarakhand lies on the southern slope of the central Himalaya, between Tibet and Nepal in the north and east and the plains of Uttar Pradesh in the south. It rises from foothills at under 300 m to peaks above 7,000 m within a width of about 100 to 150 km (approximate), and this steep change explains its climate, rivers, forests and hazards. About 86 per cent of the state is mountainous.

Location and boundaries

The state borders Tibet (China) in the north and Nepal in the east, where the Kali river marks much of the boundary. Uttar Pradesh lies to the south and Himachal Pradesh to the north-west, with the Tons and Yamuna rivers forming much of that western boundary (reported). The lowest point is the Sharda Sagar reservoir at 187 m, and the highest is Nanda Devi at 7,817 m (some books say 7,816 m).

Physiography

The Himalaya here are arranged in three parallel belts running north-west to south-east, from north to south.

Zone	Local name	What it is
Greater Himalaya	Himadri	The highest, snow-covered ranges with peaks such as Nanda Devi, Kamet, Trisul, Chaukhamba and Panchachuli, and the source glaciers of the great rivers
Lesser Himalaya	Himachal	Middle ranges of lower height, with hill towns such as Mussoorie, Nainital, Almora and Lansdowne, and most of the villages
Shivalik	Outer Himalaya	The lowest, youngest foothills, with fragile slopes and the Doon valleys

South of the Shivaliks lie two narrow lowland belts. The Bhabar is a dry, stony strip where rivers sink into gravel, and below it the Terai is a damper belt, once marshy forest and now largely farmland. The Doon (Dun) valleys between the Shivaliks and the Lesser Himalaya, of which Dehradun is the best known, are broad, fertile basins. The three Himalayan belts are separated by large thrust faults, the Main Central Thrust (between Greater and Lesser Himalaya), the Main Boundary Thrust and the Himalayan Frontal Thrust at the southern edge. These faults are one reason the region is earthquake-prone.

Further north is the Trans-Himalayan (Tethys) zone beside Tibet, a cold desert reached over high passes. The Bhotia people used these passes for the old trade with Tibet.

Peaks, glaciers and lakes

Nanda Devi, in Chamoli district, is the second-highest peak in India overall and the highest wholly inside India, since the higher Kangchenjunga is shared with Nepal. It was first climbed on 29 August 1936 by H.W. Tilman and Noel Odell. The peak stands in a ring of mountains known as the Nanda Devi Sanctuary, which India closed to visitors in 1983 to protect its ecology. Other well-known peaks include Kamet, Trisul, Chaukhamba, Nanda Kot and the Panchachuli group; exact heights are not given here because books differ.

The main glaciers are:

• Gangotri, about 30 km long and 2 to 4 km wide, ice-covered area about 200 sq km (reported), ending at Gaumukh, the source of the Bhagirathi. It has retreated in recent decades; one reference gives about 19 m a year over 1936 to 1996 and a faster recent rate.
• Pindari, in Bageshwar district, a popular trek. Pindar river rises here.
• Milam, in Pithoragarh district, in the Gori Ganga valley.
• Khatling, in Tehri Garhwal district.
• Satopanth and Bhagirath Kharak, near Badrinath, which feed the Alaknanda.

The state also has glacier-fed and mountain lakes and the lakes of Nainital district around Nainital, Bhimtal, Naukuchiatal and Sattal (reported); the Tehri reservoir on the Bhagirathi is a large man-made water body.

Rivers

Two big river systems start in the state and both belong to the Ganga basin. The table lists the main ones.

River	Origin and course	Notes
Bhagirathi	Gaumukh, Gangotri glacier	Joins the Alaknanda at Devprayag; regarded in tradition as the main source of the Ganga
Alaknanda	Satopanth and Bhagirath Kharak glaciers near Badrinath, about 3,880 m	About 195 km to Devprayag; larger than the Bhagirathi in length and flow, so scientifically the main source stream
Ganga	Formed at Devprayag	Emerges onto the plains at Haridwar
Yamuna	Yamunotri glacier, Uttarkashi district, about 4,500 m, on the slopes of Bandarpunch	1,376 km in all; meets the Ganga at Prayagraj; Tons is its largest tributary
Mandakini	Kedarnath area	Joins the Alaknanda at Rudraprayag
Pindar	Pindari glacier	Joins the Alaknanda at Karnaprayag
Ramganga	Lesser Himalaya in Kumaon-Garhwal border hills (reported)	Flows into Uttar Pradesh and joins the Ganga
Kali (Sharda)	Eastern Kumaon	Forms the boundary with Nepal; called Sharda lower down

The five confluences of the Alaknanda are known as the Panch Prayag, in the order they come downstream from the north:

Prayag	Rivers that meet
Vishnuprayag	Dhauliganga joins the Alaknanda
Nandaprayag	Nandakini joins the Alaknanda
Karnaprayag	Pindar joins the Alaknanda
Rudraprayag	Mandakini joins the Alaknanda
Devprayag	Bhagirathi joins the Alaknanda to form the Ganga

Devprayag is about 70 km from Rishikesh and Vishnuprayag about 256 km (reported). The Alaknanda has many hydropower projects built, under construction or planned, 37 in one count. The Tehri dam, on the Bhagirathi, is among the high dams of India (details in the economy section).

Climate

Climate follows height. The foothills and plains of Haridwar, Udham Singh Nagar and the Doon are hot in summer and mild in winter. The middle hills are cool and have a distinct monsoon season from about June to September, while the high Himalaya have heavy snow in winter and are snow-bound for months. Rain and snow fall differ much between valleys. Cloudbursts, floods and landslides are a regular risk in the monsoon.

Soils

Soils vary with height. The Terai and Bhabar have deep alluvial and sandy-loam soils suited to rice, sugarcane and wheat, the hill slopes have thin, stony forest and mountain soils, and the high zone has cold-region soils with little cover. This is a general description; no soil survey figure is quoted here.

Forests and vegetation

Vegetation changes with height from tropical deciduous (sal) forest in the foothills, through subtropical pine (chir) forest and mixed oak-rhododendron forest in the hills, to alpine meadows above about 3,000 m. A CAG audit report gives the recorded forest area as about 38,000 sq km, 71 per cent of the state's area, as on December 2022; the satellite-measured forest cover reported in the India State of Forest Report 2023 is about 24,303 sq km, roughly 45 per cent. The two numbers differ because "recorded forest" is a legal category and "forest cover" is measured from satellite images, so do not mix them. The state is reported to have the second-largest growing stock among states, after Arunachal Pradesh. Forest fires in the dry season are a recurring problem.

Official state symbols are the Himalayan monal (bird), the alpine musk deer (animal), the Brahma Kamal (flower) and the burans, or rhododendron (tree).

Minerals

Uttarakhand is not a major mining state. Limestone, magnesite, soapstone, gypsum and rock phosphate are the minerals usually listed for the hills and Doon, along with riverbed material (sand, gravel and boulders), but production figures are not given here because they could not be checked against a source.

Wildlife and protected areas

Tiger, leopard, elephant and sloth bear live in the foothills; snow leopard, Himalayan tahr, bharal, musk deer and bearded vulture live in the high zone; the rivers hold gharial and mugger. Six national parks are in the state.

Park	District(s)	Notes
Jim Corbett	Nainital (and Pauri Garhwal)	Established 1936, India's oldest national park; the tiger reserve area is reported as 1,288.31 sq km
Rajaji	Haridwar, Dehradun, Pauri Garhwal	Established 1983, over 800 sq km; tiger reserve declared 2015. Its Shivalik habitat continues in Kalesar (see Haryana)
Nanda Devi	Chamoli	UNESCO World Heritage Site from 1988; core of the Nanda Devi Biosphere Reserve, reported as India's second
Valley of Flowers	Chamoli	Added to the UNESCO listing in 2005, with Nanda Devi; known for alpine flowers
Gangotri	Uttarkashi	Contains Gaumukh; snow leopard and blue sheep (bharal)
Govind	Uttarkashi	About 470 sq km (reported); under the Snow Leopard programme; Govind Pashu Vihar sanctuary shares the area

Wildlife sanctuaries named in sources include Askot (musk deer), Kedarnath (musk deer), Nandhaur, Sonanadi, Binsar, Mussoorie and Benog (lists differ by source). The Asan Conservation Reserve, near Dehradun, is a Ramsar wetland and is reported to host over 330 bird species through the year.

For exam preparation

• The Himalaya in Uttarakhand have three belts: Himadri (Greater), Himachal (Lesser) and Shivalik; the Bhabar and Terai lie south of the Shivaliks.
• The Bhagirathi (from Gaumukh) and Alaknanda meet at Devprayag to form the Ganga; the Ganga emerges onto the plains at Haridwar.
• The Panch Prayag are Vishnuprayag, Nandaprayag, Karnaprayag, Rudraprayag and Devprayag.
• The Yamuna rises at Yamunotri glacier in Uttarkashi district; its largest tributary is the Tons.
• Nanda Devi (Chamoli) is the highest peak wholly inside India; first climbed on 29 August 1936.
• Jim Corbett (1936) is India's oldest national park; Nanda Devi and Valley of Flowers form a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
• State bird: Himalayan monal; state animal: alpine musk deer; state flower: Brahma Kamal; state tree: burans.

Administration and districts

Uttarakhand has 13 districts grouped into two divisions, Garhwal and Kumaon. It has had 13 districts since formation in 2000 (as on October 2026, as far as the sources checked show). Garhwal has seven districts and Kumaon six, and each division is headed by a Commissioner; the divisional headquarters are at Pauri (Garhwal) and Nainital (Kumaon), which is the usual statement though this guide did not re-check it against an official page. Below the district come tehsils, development blocks and village councils.

Divisions

Garhwal division (7 districts): Chamoli, Dehradun, Haridwar, Pauri Garhwal, Rudraprayag, Tehri Garhwal and Uttarkashi. It covers the western half of the state, including the capital, the four Char Dham shrines and Haridwar and Rishikesh.

Kumaon division (6 districts): Almora, Bageshwar, Champawat, Nainital, Pithoragarh and Udham Singh Nagar. It covers the eastern half, including the lake region and the Terai farming belt.

A proposal to carve out a third division around Gairsain was announced in March 2021 and put on hold in April 2021 (reported).

District table

District	Headquarters	Division	Notes
Almora	Almora	Kumaon	Chand capital from 1563; population fell in 2001 to 2011
Bageshwar	Bageshwar	Kumaon	Created 15 September 1997 from Almora; Bagnath temple; Uttarayani fair
Champawat	Champawat	Kumaon	Early Chand capital; created in the 1990s
Nainital	Nainital	Kumaon	Lake district; the state High Court is at Nainital
Pithoragarh	Pithoragarh	Kumaon	Borders Nepal and Tibet; Milam glacier; very low density
Udham Singh Nagar	Rudrapur	Kumaon	Terai district; highest decadal growth among districts; Tharu population
Chamoli	Gopeshwar	Garhwal	Badrinath, Nanda Devi, Valley of Flowers, Chipko's home area
Dehradun	Dehradun	Garhwal	Interim capital; highest literacy among districts
Haridwar	Haridwar	Garhwal	Most populous district; highest density
Pauri Garhwal	Pauri	Garhwal	Lansdowne and the Garhwal Rifles centre; population fell in 2001 to 2011
Rudraprayag	Rudraprayag	Garhwal	Kedarnath; Mandakini and Alaknanda confluence
Tehri Garhwal	New Tehri	Garhwal	Former princely state; Tehri dam
Uttarkashi	Uttarkashi	Garhwal	Gangotri and Yamunotri; very low density

District headquarters in the table follow standard usage and were not each re-checked against an official page. Census 2011 gives Haridwar about 1.89 million people, Dehradun about 1.70 million and Udham Singh Nagar about 1.65 million. Dehradun, Haridwar, Udham Singh Nagar and Nainital together hold about 61.5 per cent of the state's people (reported).

Formation of new districts

The state inherited 13 districts in 2000 and has not formally added any since. Several of the 13 were created while the hills were still in Uttar Pradesh; Bageshwar was carved out of Almora on 15 September 1997, and Rudraprayag, Champawat and Udham Singh Nagar were also created in the 1990s (exact dates not checked here). The state government announced plans for four more districts in 2011 (Yamunotri, Kotdwar, Ranikhet, Didihat) and a larger list of up to nine in 2016, which added Rishikesh, Roorkee, Ramnagar, Kashipur and Sitarganj-Khatima, but these were not notified, as far as the sources checked show.

Sub-divisions, tehsils and blocks

Each district is led by a District Magistrate of the Indian Administrative Service, with a Superintendent of Police and a Divisional Forest Officer for forests. There are 95 development blocks across the 13 districts (as in one reference; recheck with the latest official list). The number of tehsils is not given here because it could not be confirmed.

Local government

Rural and urban local bodies are as follows (figures from a state audit report, as on the date of that report; recheck for the latest count).

Level	Body	Count
Rural	District panchayat (Zila Panchayat)	13
Rural	Block (Kshetra) panchayat	95
Rural	Gram panchayat	7,793
Urban	Municipal corporation (Nagar Nigam)	11
Urban	Municipal council (Nagar Palika Parishad)	45
Urban	Town council (Nagar Panchayat)	51

The urban total is 107 bodies in that report; the 2025 urban election covered all 11 municipal corporations, 43 municipal councils and 47 town councils, with results declared on 25 January 2025. The panchayats follow the three-tier system under Article 243 of the Constitution (Part IX), and the urban bodies follow Part IXA. The State Election Commission conducts both sets of elections, and seats are reserved for women and for backward groups; the details are covered in the Elections section.

Scheduled and tribal areas

No part of Uttarakhand is a Fifth Schedule or Sixth Schedule area; the tribal people are covered by the general law and by reservation and special schemes. Jaunsar-Bawar was historically treated as a special area, and the Jaunsari tribe is notified as a Scheduled Tribe.

For exam preparation

• Uttarakhand has 13 districts: 7 in Garhwal and 6 in Kumaon; none were added after 2000.
• Haridwar is the most populous district and has the highest density; Udham Singh Nagar had the highest decadal growth in 2001 to 2011.
• Bageshwar became a district on 15 September 1997.
• Pauri Garhwal and Almora were the two districts whose population declined between 2001 and 2011.
• Rural local bodies: 13 zila panchayats, 95 block panchayats and 7,793 gram panchayats (reported).
• The state has no Fifth or Sixth Schedule area.

Demography

Census 2011 is the latest published census; Census 2027 has not been published. It counted 10,086,292 people in Uttarakhand, with a high sex ratio and literacy above the national average. The population is concentrated in the plains and Doon districts, while the high-mountain districts are thinly settled.

Census 2011 at a glance

Indicator (Census 2011)	Value
Population	10,086,292 (males 5,137,773; females 4,948,519)
Decadal growth, 2001 to 2011	18.81 per cent (previous decade 19.20 per cent)
Density	189 per sq km
Sex ratio	963 females per 1,000 males
Literacy	78.82 per cent (India 72.98 per cent)
Urban share	30.23 per cent
Rural share	69.77 per cent
Scheduled Tribe population	291,903 (about 2.9 per cent)

Figures of 87.6 per cent literacy (2017) and 35.9 per cent urban seen in some references are later estimates, not Census 2011.

Population distribution and density

Haridwar is the densest district at 817 persons per sq km, and Uttarkashi is among the thinnest at 41 (Chamoli is 49). Four districts, Dehradun, Haridwar, Udham Singh Nagar and Nainital, hold about 61.5 per cent of the people. Almora and Pauri Garhwal lost population in 2001 to 2011, which reflects migration out of the hills, while Udham Singh Nagar grew fastest, at about 33 per cent.

Sex ratio and literacy

The state's sex ratio of 963 is reported to be among the best in India, about fourth. District figures range from about 880 to 1,139, and Almora has the highest at 1,139, which reflects men migrating for work. District literacy runs from about 73 per cent to 84.25 per cent, and Dehradun has the highest.

Languages

Hindi is the principal official language, and Sanskrit has second-language status, which is unusual among states. The main regional languages are Garhwali in Garhwal, Kumaoni in Kumaon and Jaunsari in Jaunsar-Bawar. Bhoti (spoken by Bhotia people), Tharu, Buksa and Raji have their own languages, and Punjabi, Bengali and Nepali are also spoken.

Religion

Census 2011 reports the Hindu share at 82.97 per cent and the Muslim share at 13.95 per cent (single reference). Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists and Jains are each small groups; the Sikh community is concentrated in the Terai.

Scheduled Tribes

Five tribes are notified as Scheduled Tribes in Uttarakhand, together 291,903 people, 2.9 per cent of the state (Census 2011). Udham Singh Nagar has the most Scheduled Tribe people (123,037), because of the Tharu, and Dehradun has 111,663, mostly Jaunsari.

Tribe	Census 2011 population (reported)	Main area	Note
Tharu	91,342	Terai, Udham Singh Nagar	Farming people of the Terai
Jaunsari	88,664	Jaunsar-Bawar, Dehradun	Hill farming people
Buksa	54,037	Terai and lower hills	Reported as a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG)
Bhotia	39,106	High valleys of Chamoli, Pithoragarh, Uttarkashi	Historic Tibet traders; speak Bhoti
Raji	690	Pithoragarh and Champawat area	Small forest-dwelling group; reported as a PVTG

The numbers come from one reference; check the Census table before quoting them.

Urbanisation and human development

Urban people were 30.23 per cent in 2011. The largest urban centres are in the plains and Doon, notably Dehradun, Haridwar, Roorkee, Haldwani, Rudrapur and Kashipur. The state's Human Development Index is reported at 0.722 for 2023, in the "high" band and about 20th among states; this comes from one reference and the source of the index should be checked. NFHS-5 figures for the state are not given here because they were not verified.

For exam preparation

• Census 2011 population is 10,086,292; sex ratio is 963; literacy is 78.82 per cent; density is 189 per sq km.
• Urban population is 30.23 per cent and rural 69.77 per cent (Census 2011).
• Haridwar is the most populous district; Almora has the highest district sex ratio (1,139).
• Five Scheduled Tribes: Tharu, Jaunsari, Buksa, Bhotia and Raji; Buksa and Raji are reported as PVTGs.
• Scheduled Tribes are about 2.9 per cent of the population; Jaunsari are mainly in Dehradun and Tharu in Udham Singh Nagar.
• Hindi is the official language and Sanskrit is the second official language.

How the state is governed

Uttarakhand runs on the parliamentary model laid down in the Constitution of India: a Governor as constitutional head, a Chief Minister who leads an elected government, and a single-chamber (unicameral) legislature of 70 elected members. This section describes structure, which stays the same from one government to the next. Names of sitting office-holders change, so this guide does not list them; for the current Governor, Chief Minister, ministers, Chief Secretary, DGP and Chief Justice, use the official state portal and our current affairs pages. People whose tenures have ended are listed later in this part. The state came into being on 9 November 2000 as Uttaranchal, the 27th state of the Union, carved out of Uttar Pradesh (see Uttar Pradesh), and was renamed Uttarakhand on 1 January 2007 (Wikipedia, cross-checked in a search summary).

The executive

Office	Role	How filled
Governor	Constitutional head; summons, prorogues and dissolves the Assembly, gives assent to bills (or reserves them for the President), appoints the Chief Minister; Chancellor of the state universities	Appointed by the President for five years, serving at the President's pleasure. Wikipedia lists seven past Governors since 2000; the incumbent is the eighth
Chief Minister	Head of the government; leads the council of ministers	Leader of the party or alliance that commands a majority in the Assembly, appointed by the Governor
Council of ministers	Runs the departments; collectively responsible to the Assembly	Article 164(1A) caps the council at 15 per cent of the House but sets a floor of 12 ministers, including the Chief Minister, for a small House. For 70 seats, 15 per cent is 10.5, so the floor of 12 applies (our reading of the article; the working figure was not checked against a state source)
Chief Secretary	Head of the civil service and the secretariat	Senior IAS officer chosen by the government
Director General of Police	Head of the state police	IPS officer, selected under the Supreme Court's Prakash Singh guidelines
Advocate General	Chief legal adviser to the government (Article 165)	Appointed by the Governor

The Governor acts on the advice of the council of ministers in nearly all matters. Real discretion is narrow: inviting a leader to form a government after a split verdict, reporting a breakdown of constitutional machinery, and reserving certain bills. Uttarakhand's own history has examples in the hung-House formations of 2007 and 2012 and in the 2016 crisis described later in this part.

Capital and seats of government

Dehradun is the working capital and houses the secretariat and the Governor's residence at Raj Bhawan. The High Court sits at Nainital. The Assembly has two venues: Vidhan Bhawan in Dehradun (winter) and Vidhan Bhawan at Gairsain (Bhararisain) in Chamoli district (summer), per Wikipedia. Gairsain was reported to have been declared the "summer capital" in 2020; we did not confirm the date. Its central location in the hills made it a long-standing demand of the statehood movement.

Administrative machinery

The state is organised into departments headed by secretaries under the Chief Secretary, with 13 districts in two revenue divisions, Garhwal and Kumaon (district count as on October 2026; see the Administration and districts section). Constitutional and statutory bodies include:

• State Election Commission, formed on 30 July 2001 under the 73rd and 74th Amendments, which runs panchayat and urban local body polls (the Assembly and Lok Sabha polls are run by the Election Commission of India).
• Public Service Commission for state recruitment; see Government exams in Uttarakhand.
• State Finance Commission and State Information Commission, set up under Articles 243-I and the Right to Information Act respectively.
• Lokayukta, discussed in the next section.

For exam preparation

• Uttarakhand was formed on 9 November 2000 as the 27th state and was named Uttaranchal until 1 January 2007.
• The Assembly is unicameral with 70 elected seats; there is no Vidhan Parishad.
• The High Court is at Nainital; the working capital is Dehradun; Gairsain (Bhararisain) is the second Assembly venue.
• Under Article 164(1A), the council of ministers cannot be smaller than 12 including the Chief Minister, so the state's cap is effectively 12.
• The State Election Commission was formed on 30 July 2001.

Legislature, Parliament and judiciary

Uttarakhand has a unicameral Vidhan Sabha of 70 elected members, 5 Lok Sabha constituencies and 3 Rajya Sabha seats. Until the abolition of the Anglo-Indian nomination in January 2020 under the 104th Amendment, the Governor could also nominate one Anglo-Indian member, which made the full House 71 in the first two Assemblies (the Wikipedia article on the first Assembly records one nominated member). The High Court is at Nainital and has been functioning since 9 November 2000.

Vidhan Sabha

The Assembly has a normal term of five years and a minimum of 36 members for a majority. Seats are drawn from 13 districts. Under the 2008 delimitation, which first applied at the 2012 election, 13 seats are reserved for Scheduled Castes and 2 for Scheduled Tribes (Wikipedia's constituency list; one Wikipedia election article gives a different SC figure, which we treat as an error). 55 seats are unreserved. Women's seats are not reserved in the Assembly.

The result of the February 2022 election, which is the latest, is below. Strength changes through by-elections, resignations and defections, so we give the election result and not the live position. For the live position, see the Assembly website.

Party	Seats, 2022 election	Vote share
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)	47	44.30%
Indian National Congress (INC)	19	37.9%
Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP)	2	4.82%
Independents	2	-
Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)	0	3.31%
Total	70

The interim Assembly, 2000-2002

When the state was born there was no elected House. A provisional Assembly of 30 members came into being on 9 November 2000, formed from legislators of the Uttar Pradesh legislature who represented the hill and plains districts of the new state: 22 MLAs and 8 members of the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council (Wikipedia). Its party strength was BJP 23, Samajwadi Party 3, BSP 2 and INC 2. It served until February 2002 under two BJP Chief Ministers (see the table below). Its Speaker was Prakash Pant.

Speakers

Assembly	Speaker	Period (approximate)
Interim Assembly	Prakash Pant	2000-2002
1st (2002)	Yashpal Arya	2002-2007
2nd (2007)	Harbans Kapoor	2007-2012
3rd (2012)	Govind Singh Kunjwal	2012-2017
4th (2017)	Prem Chand Aggarwal	2017-2022
5th (2022)	Incumbent	Since March 2022

The Speaker is elected by the members at the first sitting after a general election. The Deputy Speaker's office was reported vacant in the fifth Assembly. Speaker tenures are shown by Assembly term; exact start and end dates were not verified. The Speaker's role in the March 2016 crisis is covered under Past Chief Ministers below.

Parliament

Uttarakhand sends 5 members to the Lok Sabha and 3 to the Rajya Sabha. Rajya Sabha members are elected by the MLAs for six-year terms and are not named here.

Lok Sabha constituency	Category
Tehri Garhwal	General
Garhwal	General
Almora	SC
Nainital-Udhamsingh Nagar	General
Haridwar	General

Almora is the one reserved seat (SC) in the 2024 line-up (Wikipedia). We did not verify the pre-2008 reservation pattern or the district-wise mapping, so neither is given.

Judiciary

The Uttarakhand High Court was established on 9 November 2000 under the Uttar Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2000, and sits at Nainital, in a building from 1900 (Wikipedia). Its first sanctioned strength was 7 judges, raised to 9 in 2003; Wikipedia currently lists 11 positions (9 permanent and 2 additional), reported, as on October 2026. The Chief Justice is appointed by the President after consulting the Chief Justice of India and the Governor. Two former Chief Justices of this court later became Chief Justice of India, which makes a standard exam fact: Sarosh Homi Kapadia and Jagdish Singh Khehar. Its best-known rulings include the March 2017 order declaring the Ganga and Yamuna "living entities" with legal personhood, which was later stayed by the Supreme Court (the stay is reported, not verified here), and the 2016 ruling on President's rule described later. Below the High Court sit district and sessions courts in each of the 13 districts and the subordinate civil, criminal and family courts.

Lokayukta and other bodies

The Uttarakhand Lokayukta Act was passed in 2014, but the first Lokayukta was not appointed for years; news reports say the post had been vacant since about 2013, the High Court and Supreme Court asked the state about it, and a fresh Lokayukta bill remained pending in the Assembly after 2017. We could not confirm whether the post has since been filled, so check the latest status before using this in an answer. The state also has a Human Rights Commission, an Information Commission and a Public Service Commission.

For exam preparation

• The Assembly has 70 seats: 13 reserved for SC, 2 for ST, 55 general.
• The nominated Anglo-Indian seat ended in 2020 after the 104th Amendment.
• The interim Assembly of 30 members had 22 MLAs and 8 MLCs from Uttar Pradesh; its Speaker was Prakash Pant.
• The Uttarakhand High Court at Nainital was established on 9 November 2000; the first Chief Justice was Ashok Desai.
• Kapadia and Khehar, both once Chief Justices of this court, later became Chief Justice of India.
• Uttarakhand has 5 Lok Sabha seats (Almora is SC) and 3 Rajya Sabha seats.

Elections

Uttarakhand has held five Assembly elections since formation, in 2002, 2007, 2012, 2017 and 2022, plus the nomination-based interim House of 2000. For the first four, the ruling party lost every time, a pattern of alternating Congress and BJP governments that gave the state a reputation for "changing the government every five years." The 2022 election broke it: the BJP became the first party to be returned to power in the state. The BJP and Congress have taken most seats at every election; the BSP and the regional Uttarakhand Kranti Dal (UKD) have won single digits.

Vidhan Sabha elections, 2002 to 2022

Seat counts are from Wikipedia's election articles and, where marked, indiavotes.com. Vote shares are for the party across the state. "Government" shows who ruled after the election.

Year	Polling	Turnout	Seats	Largest parties (seats)	Government
2002	14 Feb	54.34%	70	INC 36, BJP 19, BSP 7, UKD 4, NCP 1, Independents 3	INC
2007	21 Feb	59.45% (one source: 63.1%)	70	BJP 34 (Wikipedia: 35), INC 21, BSP 8, UKD 3, Independents 3	BJP, with UKD and Independents
2012	30 Jan	66.17%	70	INC 32, BJP 31, BSP 3, UKD(P) 1, Independents 3	INC, with BSP, UKD(P) and Independents
2017	15 Feb (Karnaprayag 9 Mar)	65.60%	70	BJP 57, INC 11, Independents 2	BJP
2022	14 Feb	65.41%	70	BJP 47, INC 19, BSP 2, Independents 2	BJP

Year	Vote share of leading parties
2002	INC 26.91%, BJP 25.45%, BSP 10.93%
2007	BJP 31.90%, INC 29.59%, BSP 11.76%; Independents 10.81% and UKD 5.49% (indiavotes)
2012	INC 33.79%, BJP 33.13%
2017	BJP 46.5%, INC 33.5%, BSP about 7% (no seat)
2022	BJP 44.30%, INC 37.9%, BSP 4.82%, AAP 3.31% (no seat)

Notes: 2007 turnout and the BJP's seat count differ between Wikipedia and indiavotes.com, so both are shown; the 2007 parties listed add to 69 of 70 seats, and the last seat is not confirmed. The count of women elected in 2022 was not confirmed. Wikipedia gives the 2022 electorate as about 8.5 million, against 76.07 lakh registered in 2017.

The interim period and the first election

The first government was not elected. When Uttaranchal was created on 9 November 2000, the BJP was in power at the Centre and the provisional Assembly of 30 members chose the party's leader as the first Chief Minister. A leadership change came in October 2001, a year before the first elections. When the first poll took place in February 2002 the Congress won 36 seats against the BJP's 19, and a veteran Congress leader who had been Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh several times became Chief Minister of the new state. This is the only five-year term completed by a Chief Minister in Uttarakhand's history, and the only majority won by the Congress. Wikipedia notes that it was also the only poll in which the Nationalist Congress Party won a seat. The Chief Minister entered the Assembly through the Ramnagar by-election of 8 August 2002 (Wikipedia).

2007: the first hung Assembly

With 34 or 35 seats of 70, the BJP fell one or two seats short of a majority. It formed the government with the three UKD members and three Independents, who supported it from outside or by joining. The Chief Minister entered the Assembly through the Dhumakot by-election of 29 August 2007, which the BJP won, a seat taken from the Congress (Wikipedia). That Assembly saw two Chief Ministers in three spells (see the table later in this part). Two small margins from 2007 are often quoted: the Narendranagar seat was reported as decided by 4 votes and Pauri by 11 votes (indiavotes).

2012: a one-seat verdict

The 2012 election was the closest in the state's history. The Congress won 32 seats to the BJP's 31, with a vote-share gap of 0.66 percentage points (Wikipedia: INC 33.79%, BJP 33.13%). The Congress formed a government with the BSP's 3 members, the UKD(P)'s 1 member and 3 Independents, reaching the 36-seat majority. A sitting Member of Parliament from the party became Chief Minister and entered the Assembly through the Sitarganj by-election on 8 July 2012.

2017: the largest majority

The BJP won 57 of 70 seats with 46.5 per cent of the vote, a gain of about 13 percentage points over 2012, while the Congress fell from 32 to 11 seats. The BSP got about 7 per cent of the vote and no seats. This remains the largest majority in the state's Assembly history. The previous Chief Minister, who had returned in May 2016 after the President's rule episode, lost power. The Karnaprayag seat was polled late, on 9 March 2017, because of the death of a candidate.

2022: the first repeat government

The BJP won 47 seats on 44.30 per cent of the vote, while the Congress improved to 19 seats on 37.9 per cent. The BSP won two seats and AAP, which contested widely, won none with 3.31 per cent. It was the first time in the state's history that an incumbent government was returned. The BJP lost 10 seats against 2017; the Congress gained 8. Turnout was 65.41 per cent, slightly below 2017. Counting was on 10 March 2022. The Chief Minister of the day, who had held office since July 2021, continued, after entering the House through the June 2022 Champawat by-election; that by-election was reported at the time as the largest margin in any state by-election (about 55,000 votes, around 92 per cent of the vote; reported, figures from news summaries).

By-elections

Reported by-elections in the Assembly, mostly to bring a Chief Minister into the House:

Year	Constituency	Context
2002	Ramnagar	Chief Minister of the first elected government won on 8 Aug 2002
2007	Dhumakot	BJP leader who became Chief Minister won on 29 Aug 2007, gaining the seat from INC
2012	Sitarganj	INC leader who became Chief Minister won on 8 Jul 2012 with 77.14% (reported)
2014	Dharchula	INC leader who was Chief Minister won on 21 Jul 2014 with 74.63% (reported)
2022	Champawat	Chief Minister of the day won in June 2022, record margin (reported)

The Wikipedia article on the 2nd Assembly adds that by-elections in Vikasnagar, Dhumakot and Kapkot (2007-12) were all won by the BJP. A full by-election register was not opened.

Lok Sabha elections, 2004 to 2024

Year	Polling	Turnout	Seats	Vote share of leading parties
2004	10 May	48.07%	BJP 3, INC 1, SP 1	BJP 40.98%, INC 38.31%, SP 7.93%
2009	13 May	53.43%	INC 5	INC 43.14%, BJP 33.80%
2014	7 May	61.67%	BJP 5	BJP 55.32%, INC 34.03%
2019	Apr 2019	61.88%	BJP 5	BJP 61.01%, INC 31.40%, BSP 4.48%
2024	19 Apr	57.69%	BJP 5	BJP 56.81%, INC 32.83%

Where each cycle fits the state story: the Congress swept all five seats in 2009 when it was in opposition in the state; the BJP swept all five in 2014, 2019 and 2024 (three in a row). The 2019 polling date was not confirmed from the page opened, so we give the month only. MPs are not named here.

Local body elections

Local bodies are of two kinds. Urban: 11 municipal corporations, municipal councils, nagar panchayats and cantonment boards. Rural: 13 district panchayats, 95 block (kshetra) panchayats and 7,793 gram panchayats (Wikipedia). Both sets are run by the State Election Commission and held every five years.

Urban local bodies, January 2025. Polling was on 23 January 2025 and results on 25 January 2025. The elections covered all 11 municipal corporations, 43 municipal councils and 46 nagar panchayats (one search summary says 47); the nagar panchayats of Badrinath, Kedarnath and Gangotri are not polled because they are temporary pilgrim-season settlements. The BJP won 10 of the 11 mayoral posts; an Independent won the other (Srinagar in Pauri district); the Congress won none, having held two in 2018. Across 1,382 seats of all kinds, one source tallies BJP 499, INC 195 and Independents 680; another Wikipedia article gives BJP 504, INC 198 and Independents 693 on a slightly different base, so treat these as approximate. Wikipedia reported that neither major party renominated its sitting mayors. The turnout figure for this election was not confirmed.

Panchayat elections, July 2025. Held in two phases on 24 and 28 July 2025, with counting on 31 July, across 89 blocks in 12 districts; Haridwar is not covered because its rural body elections are held separately (Wikipedia). The polls were first fixed for June, stopped by a High Court order, and then revived. Turnout was 69.16 per cent. The elections are non-partisan, with no party symbols, though parties back candidates. Wikipedia counts 358 district panchayat members, 2,974 block panchayat members and 7,499 village heads (pradhans) won by candidates not on any party list, and a news wire reported the Congress claiming 138 of 198 district seats it had authorised. By-elections for 321 vacant seats were reported for 20 November 2025. Reservation quotas for women, SC, ST and OBC in local bodies were not verified in detail; check the State Election Commission before quoting them.

Reservation and delimitation

• The 2008 Delimitation Order, under the Delimitation Act, 2002, redrew boundaries of the 70 Assembly and 5 Lok Sabha seats; it first applied at the 2012 Assembly election and the 2009 Lok Sabha election. The Assembly's strength of 70 was not changed.
• Reserved Assembly seats: 13 SC and 2 ST (Wikipedia constituency list).
• Lok Sabha reserved seat: Almora (SC); no ST seat.
• The next delimitation is frozen by the Constitution until after the first Census taken after 2026; Census 2011 remains the latest published census.
• Voters: 76.07 lakh were registered in 2017 (Wikipedia). The 2022 elector count, the sex ratio of electors and the number of EPIC card holders were not confirmed.

Firsts and records

• First poll: 14 February 2002; first Congress win; the only five-year term by a Chief Minister.
• First hung Assembly: 2007.
• Closest verdict: 2012, with the Congress ahead by one seat.
• Largest majority: BJP, 57 of 70, in 2017.
• First re-election of the incumbent government: BJP, 2022.
• Five Lok Sabha seats swept by one party: INC in 2009; BJP in 2014, 2019 and 2024.

For exam preparation

• Uttarakhand has held five Assembly elections: 2002, 2007, 2012, 2017, 2022.
• The Congress won 36 seats in 2002, the BJP won 57 in 2017, and the BJP won 47 in 2022.
• The 2012 result (INC 32, BJP 31) was the closest.
• The 2022 election was the first in which a sitting government was re-elected.
• The BJP won all five Lok Sabha seats in 2014, 2019 and 2024; the Congress won all five in 2009.
• In the January 2025 civic polls the BJP won 10 of 11 mayoral posts.
• The 2008 delimitation reserved 13 seats for SC and 2 for ST.

Past Chief Ministers, Governors and office-holders

Uttarakhand has had ten Chief Ministers in all. Nine have completed tenures; the tenth is the incumbent and is left unnamed. Counting returns, there have been 13 spells in office, and the state has twice been under President's rule, both times in 2016. Only one Chief Minister, the first elected one, has completed a full five-year term.

Chief Ministers (completed tenures)

No.	Chief Minister	Party	From	To	Notes
1	Nityanand Swami	BJP	9 Nov 2000	29 Oct 2001	Interim Assembly; first Chief Minister
2	Bhagat Singh Koshyari	BJP	30 Oct 2001	1 Mar 2002	Interim Assembly
3	N. D. Tiwari	INC	2 Mar 2002	7 Mar 2007	Only full five-year term
4	B. C. Khanduri	BJP	7 Mar 2007	27 Jun 2009	First spell
5	Ramesh Pokhriyal	BJP	27 Jun 2009	11 Sep 2011
4	B. C. Khanduri	BJP	11 Sep 2011	13 Mar 2012	Second spell
6	Vijay Bahuguna	INC	13 Mar 2012	31 Jan 2014
7	Harish Rawat	INC	1 Feb 2014	27 Mar 2016	First spell
-	President's rule	-	27 Mar 2016	21 Apr 2016
7	Harish Rawat	INC	21 Apr 2016	22 Apr 2016	Second spell, one day
-	President's rule	-	22 Apr 2016	11 May 2016
7	Harish Rawat	INC	11 May 2016	18 Mar 2017	Third spell
8	Trivendra Singh Rawat	BJP	18 Mar 2017	10 Mar 2021
9	Tirath Singh Rawat	BJP	10 Mar 2021	4 Jul 2021
10	Incumbent	BJP	4 Jul 2021	Incumbent	Re-sworn after the 2022 election

Dates are from Wikipedia's list of Chief Ministers (opened); the same list gives about 44 days of President's rule. Three tenures were under a year (Swami, Koshyari and Tirath Singh Rawat). Chief Ministers changed within a term in 2001, 2009, 2011, 2014 and twice in 2021.

The 2016 President's rule episodes

The 2016 events are the best-known constitutional matter in the state's history. On 18 March 2016 the Speaker declared a money bill passed, though 35 members, including nine rebel Congress MLAs, had asked for a division (a vote); nine Congress MLAs were later disqualified. The Union government imposed President's rule under Article 356 on 27 March 2016. The Uttarakhand High Court, in a division bench headed by the then Chief Justice, quashed the proclamation on 21 April 2016 and ordered a floor test, restoring the former Chief Minister, who took office for a day. The Supreme Court stayed that order the next day (reported), and President's rule was reimposed. A floor test supervised under the Supreme Court's directions took place on 10 May 2016; the Chief Minister obtained 33 of 61 votes cast, with the nine disqualified members not voting (LiveLaw and other news reports). On 11 May 2016 the Supreme Court allowed him to resume office, and the Centre revoked President's rule the same day. The Supreme Court's wider written reasoning on Article 356 and the disqualification of the nine members was not confirmed from a source opened for this guide, and a Wikipedia summary appears to misdate parts of the sequence, so we have not repeated it.

Governors (completed tenures)

No.	Governor	From	To
1	Surjit Singh Barnala	9 Nov 2000	7 Jan 2003
2	Sudarshan Agarwal	8 Jan 2003	28 Oct 2007
3	Banwari Lal Joshi	29 Oct 2007	5 Aug 2009
4	Margaret Alva	6 Aug 2009	14 May 2012
5	Aziz Qureshi	15 May 2012	7 Jan 2015
6	Krishan Kant Paul	8 Jan 2015	25 Aug 2018
7	Baby Rani Maurya	26 Aug 2018	8 Sep 2021
8	Incumbent	9 Sep 2021	Incumbent

Source: Wikipedia's list of Governors (opened). Two women have been Governor of the state (Margaret Alva and Baby Rani Maurya). Whether any spell was additional-charge was not checked.

Speakers

See the table in the legislature section. The Speakers who have completed tenures are Prakash Pant (interim), Yashpal Arya, Harbans Kapoor, Govind Singh Kunjwal and Prem Chand Aggarwal.

Chief Justices of the High Court (completed tenures)

No.	Chief Justice	From	To
1	Ashok Desai	6 Dec 2000	31 Mar 2003
2	Sarosh Homi Kapadia	5 Aug 2003	17 Dec 2003
3	Vikas Sridhar Sirpurkar	25 Jul 2004	19 Mar 2005
4	Cyriac Joseph	20 Mar 2005	6 Jan 2006
5	Rajeev Gupta	14 Jan 2006	1 Feb 2008
6	Vinod Kumar Gupta	2 Feb 2008	9 Sep 2009
7	Jagdish Singh Khehar	29 Nov 2009	7 Aug 2010
8	Barin Ghosh	12 Aug 2010	4 Jun 2014
9	Kuttiyil Mathew Joseph	31 Jul 2014	6 Aug 2018
10	Ramesh Ranganathan	2 Nov 2018	27 Jul 2020
11	Raghvendra Singh Chauhan	7 Jan 2021	23 Dec 2021
12	Vipin Sanghi	28 Jun 2022	26 Oct 2023
13	Ritu Bahri	4 Feb 2024	10 Oct 2024
14	Guhanathan Narendar	26 Dec 2024	9 Jan 2026
15	Incumbent	10 Jan 2026	Incumbent

Source: Wikipedia's article on the Uttarakhand High Court (opened), which counts 15 permanent Chief Justices to date; the table omits any acting Chief Justices between tenures, which we did not list.

For exam preparation

• The first Chief Minister was Nityanand Swami (BJP), 9 November 2000.
• N. D. Tiwari (INC) is the only Chief Minister to complete a five-year term.
• President's rule was imposed on 27 March 2016 and was revoked on 11 May 2016, after a floor test on 10 May.
• The first Governor was Surjit Singh Barnala; Margaret Alva and Baby Rani Maurya were the two women Governors.
• The first Chief Justice of the High Court was Ashok Desai.
• The first Speaker was Prakash Pant, of the interim Assembly.

Political history and movements

Uttarakhand's politics begins with a long demand for a separate hill state, which was carried by teachers, students, women's groups, ex-servicemen and the regional UKD, and which turned into a mass movement after the events of 1994. Since 2000 the state has had alternating Congress and BJP governments until 2022, frequent changes of Chief Minister, and a few themes that recur: the location of the capital, migration from the hills, land and domicile rules, and the role of regional parties.

The statehood movement

The demand for a hill administration is older than independence, but most accounts date the modern movement to the 1970s and 1980s. The Uttarakhand Kranti Dal (UKD) was founded on 24 July 1979 at Mussoorie to press for a separate state (Wikipedia). In 1988 a leader of the movement walked for 105 days across the hills to build support (Wikipedia). The turning point came in 1994, after the Uttar Pradesh government decided to apply 27 per cent OBC reservation in jobs; hill residents, whose OBC population is small, saw it as a threat to local employment and combined it with the old demand.

The 1994 events are remembered by place name and date (casualty counts are as reported in Wikipedia and varied in other accounts):

• Khatima, 1 September 1994: police firing on a march killed several protesters (reported seven).
• Mussoorie, 2 September 1994: police firing in the town killed protesters and a police Circle Officer (reported six protesters and the officer).
• Rampur Tiraha, Muzaffarnagar, 2 October 1994: police stopped buses of protesters heading to a rally in Delhi. Wikipedia reports six deaths and allegations of sexual assault on women protesters, which led to cases in the courts; we have not described the legal outcomes because they were not verified.
• 3 October 1994: violence in Dehradun and Kotdwar (reported deaths in both places), and further deaths at Srinagar (Garhwal) on 10 November 1994.

On 15 August 1996, the then Prime Minister announced that a hill state would be created (Wikipedia). The Uttar Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2000 was passed by the Lok Sabha on 1 August 2000 and by the Rajya Sabha on 10 August 2000, and received the President's assent on 28 August 2000; the state came into being on 9 November 2000 as Uttaranchal. The name was changed to Uttarakhand on 1 January 2007 under the Uttaranchal (Alteration of Name) Act, 2006.

After statehood: themes and developments

• Alternating governments, 2002-2017. The Congress ruled from 2002, the BJP from 2007, the Congress from 2012, the BJP from 2017, and the BJP again after 2022. Changes of Chief Minister within a term are listed above.
• 2016 constitutional crisis. Described in the previous section; the episode is cited in later Supreme Court discussion of floor tests.
• Capital question. Dehradun is the working capital; Gairsain, in the middle of the hills, is the venue of the summer Assembly session. The planned location has been argued about since the first Assembly.
• Uniform Civil Code, 2024. The Uniform Civil Code of Uttarakhand Act, 2024 was passed by the Assembly on 7 February 2024 and received the President's assent in March 2024 (sources give 11 or 12 March). It was reported to have come into force on 27 January 2025. The Act is described as the first such state law after independence. It applies to residents of the state other than members of Scheduled Tribes and covers marriage and divorce (a minimum age of 18 for women and 21 for men and compulsory registration), succession and inheritance (equal rights of sons and daughters), and a registration scheme for live-in relationships. Supporters call it a measure for equality; critics, including some religious bodies, say it affects personal-law freedoms and privacy. Challenges were reported in the High Court; we did not verify their status. Pareeksha takes no side; use the Act's text and the High Court's rulings for exam answers.
• Anti-conversion law. The state first passed a Freedom of Religion law in 2018, amended it in 2022, and a further amendment bill to raise penalties was reported as passed in August 2025 (news reports; the Governor's or President's assent was not confirmed).
• Land law. In February 2025 the Assembly passed an amendment to the Uttar Pradesh Zamindari Abolition and Land Reforms Act, 1950, as applied in the state, that restricts people from outside the state from buying agricultural and horticultural land in 11 of the 13 districts (Haridwar and Udham Singh Nagar are excluded, but sales there need state government approval); up to 250 square metres may still be bought for residential use (reported, news summaries). The demand for a stronger land law has been tied to the movement's slogans on identity and migration.

Regional parties and movements

The UKD won 4 seats in 2002 and 3 in 2007; one UKD(P) member backed the Congress government of 2012. It has no seats in the Assembly elected in 2017 and 2022 as far as we verified, and the Assembly results since 2017 show only the BJP, the Congress, the BSP and Independents. The Chipko movement of the 1970s is covered in the culture and geography sections, not here.

For exam preparation

• The UKD was founded at Mussoorie on 24 July 1979.
• The Khatima and Mussoorie firings were on 1 and 2 September 1994; the Rampur Tiraha (Muzaffarnagar) incident was on 2 October 1994.
• The Uttar Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2000 got assent on 28 August 2000; Uttaranchal was created on 9 November 2000.
• The state was renamed Uttarakhand on 1 January 2007.
• The Uniform Civil Code of Uttarakhand Act, 2024 was passed on 7 February 2024 and exempts Scheduled Tribes.

Budget and governance

The latest budget is for 2026-27, presented on 9 March 2026 (PRS Legislative Research, opened for this guide). The figures below are budget estimates as on October 2026; check the state finance department for revisions.

Item	2026-27 (Budget Estimate)
GSDP (projected, current prices)	Rs 4,27,716 crore, growth of 12 per cent over 2025-26
Total expenditure (excluding debt repayment)	Rs 83,543 crore, up 10 per cent from Rs 75,605 crore (2025-26 revised)
Capital outlay	Rs 18,153 crore, up 22 per cent
Revenue receipts	Rs 67,526 crore, up 8 per cent; own resources Rs 31,620 crore (47 per cent) and central transfers Rs 35,906 crore (53 per cent)
Central transfers	Devolution of taxes Rs 17,415 crore; grants-in-aid Rs 18,491 crore
Revenue surplus	Rs 2,536 crore, 0.6 per cent of GSDP
Fiscal deficit	Rs 15,989 crore, 3.7 per cent of GSDP
Outstanding liabilities	28.5 per cent of GSDP (28 per cent in 2025-26 revised)

State GST is about 47 per cent of own tax revenue, and is projected to grow about 10 per cent; state excise grows 11 per cent and sales tax/VAT 5 per cent. The fiscal deficit is above the 3 per cent ceiling PRS cites from the Finance Commission. The largest sector allocations are education, sports and arts Rs 13,201 crore, agriculture and allied Rs 6,078 crore, rural development Rs 5,533 crore, health Rs 4,916 crore and social welfare Rs 4,556 crore, together 56 per cent of sector spending. The budget speech emphasised skill-linked jobs and pilgrimage-site infrastructure (PRS).

Revenue-surplus status is common among special-category hill states because of the large grants-in-aid from the Centre, which here are over half of revenue receipts. For a deeper view of GSDP, taxes and FRBM, see the Economy section.

E-governance and administration

We opened no state portal page for this guide, so e-governance schemes and launch dates are not listed; add them only after checking the state portal.

For exam preparation

• The 2026-27 budget was presented on 9 March 2026; GSDP is projected at Rs 4,27,716 crore.
• Total expenditure excluding debt repayment is Rs 83,543 crore.
• The fiscal deficit is 3.7 per cent of GSDP and the state projects a revenue surplus of 0.6 per cent.
• Central transfers are about 53 per cent of revenue receipts.
• Education has the largest sector allocation at Rs 13,201 crore.

Economy

Uttarakhand is a small Himalayan state with an economy that looks two ways. In the southern plains and foothills, around Haridwar, Dehradun, Udham Singh Nagar and Nainital, factories, farms and cities produce most of the output. In the mountain districts, income comes from pilgrimage, tourism, hydropower, army and government jobs, remittances and subsistence farming. As on October 2026, the best single reference for the state's finances is the analysis of the state budget published by PRS Legislative Research, which reads the budget documents and the state's own estimates. The figures below come from that analysis unless another source is named. GSDP (gross state domestic product) is the total value of goods and services produced inside a state in a year.

Size, growth and income

Indicator	Value	Source / note
GSDP, 2026-27 (budget projection, current prices)	₹4,27,716 crore, projected growth 12% over 2025-26	PRS analysis of the 2026-27 budget
GSDP, 2025-26 (projection in the earlier budget)	₹4,29,308 crore, growth 13%	PRS analysis of the 2025-26 budget
Real growth, 2024-25 (constant prices)	6.4%, against 6.5% for India	PRS, 2026-27 analysis
Real growth, 2023-24 (constant prices)	7.6%, against 9.2% for India	PRS, 2025-26 analysis
Per capita GSDP, 2024-25	₹2,96,012, up 9.8% on 2023-24	PRS; India's figure given as ₹2,34,859
Per capita GSDP, 2023-24	₹2,95,751	PRS, 2025-26 analysis (India: ₹2,11,725)

Two cautions apply. The 2026-27 GSDP projection is slightly lower than the 2025-26 projection published a year earlier, which means the 2025-26 base was revised during the year; read the table as "what each budget said", not as a continuous series. And "current prices" means values in that year's rupees, so part of any rise is inflation; "constant prices" removes price changes and measures real growth. Per capita GSDP says nothing about how evenly income is spread.

Sectors of the economy

PRS gives the share of each sector in gross value added (the output of the economy before taxes and subsidies on products). The trend is clear: services have overtaken industry.

Sector	2023-24 (PRS, 2025-26 analysis)	2024-25 (PRS, 2026-27 analysis)
Agriculture and allied	10%	10%
Manufacturing (as labelled by PRS)	47%	41%
Services	43%	49%

Agriculture produces a tenth of the value added but employs a far larger share of hill households. Manufacturing is concentrated in the three integrated industrial estates and the pharma, auto-component, food-processing and packaging units around them. Services include tourism, hospitality, transport, education, health, trade and government.

What drives the economy

• Industry in the plains. The state's industrial rise dates from the central government's 2003 package for Uttaranchal and Himachal Pradesh. An office memorandum of 7 January 2003 offered new units in notified industrial areas a full excise duty exemption for ten years from the start of commercial production, and a 100% income tax exemption for five years followed by a reduced rate for five more. Units had to begin production before 31 March 2010 to qualify, and the state's industrial development corporation was named the nodal agency for the incentives. The package pulled factories to the Haridwar, Pantnagar and Sitarganj estates; the details are in the next section.
• Tourism and pilgrimage. The state tourism department reported, according to a news account, more than 6.03 crore tourists and pilgrims in 2025, the first year above six crore. Haridwar alone was reported at about 3.42 crore visits. These counts include day pilgrims and repeat visits, so treat them as visits, not individuals. See the tourism section.
• Hydropower. The rivers supply power to the northern grid and revenue to the state; see the energy sub-section below.

Public finances

Item	2026-27 (budget estimate)	Note
Total expenditure	₹83,543 crore, up 10%	PRS
Total revenue receipts	₹67,526 crore, up 8%	PRS
Own tax revenue	₹25,913 crore, up 9%	PRS
Revenue surplus	0.6% of GSDP (₹2,536 crore)	PRS
Fiscal deficit	3.7% of GSDP (₹15,989 crore)	PRS
Outstanding liabilities	28.5% of GSDP	PRS

A revenue surplus means the state's day-to-day receipts exceed its day-to-day spending, which is unusual among Indian states. The fiscal deficit, the gap between total spending and total non-borrowed receipts, is higher than the 2.9% (₹12,605 crore) projected in the 2025-26 budget. PRS lists the following sector allocations for 2026-27: education, sports and arts ₹13,201 crore; agriculture ₹6,078 crore; rural development ₹5,533 crore; and health and family welfare ₹4,916 crore.

For exam preparation

• PRS puts Uttarakhand's per capita GSDP for 2024-25 at ₹2,96,012, above the all-India figure of ₹2,34,859 given in the same analysis.
• Services contributed about 49% of gross value added in 2024-25, manufacturing about 41% and agriculture about 10% (PRS).
• The 2026-27 budget estimate shows a revenue surplus of 0.6% of GSDP and a fiscal deficit of 3.7%.
• The 2003 industrial package gave a ten-year excise exemption to qualifying new units in Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh.
• The three integrated industrial estates are at Haridwar, Pantnagar and Sitarganj.
• Real growth in 2024-25 was 6.4% at constant prices (PRS).

Agriculture, forests, minerals, industry and energy

About 86% of Uttarakhand's area is mountainous (a reference page, using the 53,483 sq km total), so farming means terraced slopes in the hills and canal-fed fields in the Terai and Bhabar plains of the south. Forests are the state's defining land use, minerals are concentrated in the Kumaon hills, and the rivers are its main energy resource. Industry clusters in the plains around three planned estates.

Agriculture and horticulture

The hills practise rain-fed, terrace farming. A reference account names mandua (finger millet) and jhangora (barnyard millet) as the traditional hill grains, and the state obtained geographical indication (GI) tags for both in 2023, along with gahat (horse gram) dal, red rice, black bhatt (a soybean variety), amaranth (ramdana) and other hill crops. A GI (geographical indication) tag protects a product tied to a place; see the culture section. The plains districts, Udham Singh Nagar, Haridwar, Dehradun and Nainital, grow rice, wheat and sugarcane; a 2024-25 account names Haridwar, Udham Singh Nagar, Dehradun and Nainital as the sugarcane districts.

Horticulture is where hill farming meets the market. Apples are grown in the upper reaches, mainly in Uttarkashi, Nainital, Dehradun and Chamoli according to a district compilation (year not confirmed). Other fruits named in sources are oranges, pears, peaches, plums and litchi. Ramnagar litchi, Nainital peach and Berinag tea hold GI tags. One account reports a first export consignment of one tonne of fresh litchi to Italy, but we do not have its date. There is also bad news: a trade-press report says fruit production fell from 6,62,847 tonnes in 2016-17 to 3,69,447 tonnes in 2022-23, a drop of about 44%, with apple area roughly halving. We have this from a single secondary source and mark it reported.

The state's agricultural research strength is G. B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology at Pantnagar (see the education section), which tested the Mexican wheat varieties that fed the Green Revolution in the 1960s.

Forests and wildlife

Uttarakhand has two forest figures that are often confused.

Measure	Figure	Note
Recorded forest area (legal forest land)	About 38,000 sq km, 71% of the state	As reported for December 2022 in a state government filing; the state's geographical area is 53,483 sq km
Reserved forests	26,547 sq km, 69.86% of recorded forest	Same filing
Protected forests	9,885 sq km, 26.01% of recorded forest	Same filing
Unclassed forests	1,568 sq km, 4.13% of recorded forest	Same filing
Forest cover (tree canopy seen by satellite)	24,305 sq km, 45.44% of the state	India State of Forest Report 2021 figure on a reference page; the RBI-compiled 2023 table shows 24,304 sq km
Very dense forest	5,055 sq km	Same ISFR 2021 data
Moderately dense forest	12,768 sq km	Same
Open forest	6,482 sq km	Same

The point of the table is the difference: "recorded forest area" is land legally classed as forest, whether or not trees stand on it today, while "forest cover" is what a satellite sees as canopy. That is why the state is described as roughly 71% forest by law and about 45% by canopy. The 71% figure comes from a state government filing quoted in a search result, not from the forest report itself, so cite it as reported. Van Panchayats, village forest councils, number more than 12,000 (12,167, reported); they are among the oldest community forest institutions in India.

Protected areas include the Jim Corbett, Rajaji, Nanda Devi, Valley of Flowers and Gangotri national parks. The state forest department's own site also lists Govind among its national parks and names the Govind, Nandhaur, Sonanadi and Kedarnath wildlife sanctuaries and the Pawalgarh conservation reserve. The state has two tiger reserves, Corbett and Rajaji, and one Ramsar wetland of international importance, the Asan Barrage (designated 21 July 2020, 444 hectares, with more than 330 bird species recorded).

The Chipko movement began here. In March 1973 villagers in Mandal in Chamoli blocked logging, and in March 1974 a group of women led by Gaura Devi stopped felling at Reni village by embracing trees (accounts give the date as 25 or 26 March). A ban on felling trees in the Himalayan region for fifteen years followed in 1980, and the movement received the Right Livelihood Award in 1987.

Minerals

The mineral map of the state is mostly the Kumaon and lower Garhwal hills. Indian Bureau of Mines yearbook summaries report high-grade limestone in Almora, Bageshwar, Dehradun, Nainital, Pauri Garhwal, Pithoragarh and Tehri Garhwal; magnesite and steatite (soapstone) in Almora, Bageshwar, Chamoli and Pithoragarh; and dolomite in Dehradun, Nainital and Tehri Garhwal. One summary says the state was the second-largest producer of magnesite and of talc/soapstone/steatite, with about 19% and 10% of national output, but it does not give the year, so treat the shares as indicative. Riverbed sand, gravel and boulders are the other major mineral class, and mining regulation is a continuing issue.

Industry

The State Infrastructure and Industrial Development Corporation of Uttarakhand (SIIDCUL, originally SIDCUL) was set up in 2002 with its headquarters in Dehradun. It began with an authorised share capital of ₹50 crore, with equity participation by banks including SIDBI. It develops and manages estates at:

Estate	Notes
Haridwar	Near the BHEL area, Shivalik Nagar; one of the three integrated industrial estates
Pantnagar / Rudrapur	Integrated industrial estate, Udham Singh Nagar district
Sitarganj	Third integrated estate, near Shaktifarm
Kashipur, Kotdwar	Near Escorts Farm; Sigaddi Growth Centre
Dehradun	IT Park and Pharma City at Selaqui

The three integrated estates, at Haridwar, Pantnagar and Sitarganj, are the heart of manufacturing.

Energy

Hydropower is the main energy story. A trade-press feature on the state's hydro corporation, UJVNL, reports a total potential of about 25,000 MW, of which about 17,000 MW is considered environmentally sustainable, plus about 10,000 MW of pumped-storage potential. Installed hydro capacity was 4,269.17 MW on 31 December 2024, split between UJVNL (1,441 MW), central public-sector units (1,860 MW) and independent producers (962.5 MW).

Project	River	Capacity	Status as reported
Tehri Dam and power station (THDC)	Bhagirathi	1,000 MW; dam 260.5 m, India's tallest	Construction began 1978; opened 2006 (a reference page gives 2006)
Tehri Pumped Storage Plant	Bhagirathi	1,000 MW planned, two 250 MW units reported commissioned on 5 June and 5 July 2025	Capacity figures differ between sources
Vishnugad Pipalkoti (THDC)	Alaknanda	444 MW (4 x 111 MW)	Commissioning anticipated by March 2027
Tapovan Vishnugad (NTPC)	Dhauliganga	520 MW (4 x 130 MW)	Commissioning anticipated 2028-29

The dam was opposed by a long movement led by Sunderlal Bahuguna from the 1980s to 2004, on grounds of displacement of more than 100,000 people, earthquake risk in a seismic zone and the effect on a river sacred to Hindus.

For exam preparation

• Recorded forest area is about 71% of the state; forest cover is about 45% (ISFR 2021: 24,305 sq km, 45.44%).
• Corbett and Rajaji are the two tiger reserves of Uttarakhand.
• The Asan Barrage is the state's Ramsar site, designated in 2020.
• The Chipko movement began in Chamoli in the early 1970s; Gaura Devi led the Reni action in March 1974.
• Tehri Dam on the Bhagirathi is 260.5 m high and has a 1,000 MW power station.
• SIIDCUL was set up in 2002 and has its headquarters in Dehradun.
• Total hydropower potential is estimated at about 25,000 MW; installed hydro capacity was 4,269.17 MW at the end of 2024.

Transport and infrastructure

Moving around a mountain state is hard and expensive, and most journeys depend on roads that climb along river valleys and are cut by monsoon landslides. Rail reaches only the foothills; the first big hill railway is under construction. The big projects of the last decade are the Char Dham highway, the Rishikesh-Karnaprayag rail line and the Delhi-Dehradun expressway.

Rail

Uttarakhand falls under the Northern Railway zone, with main stations at Haridwar Junction, Dehradun and Kathgodam, the railhead for Nainital and the Kumaon hills. The state has no existing line deep into the mountains. The new Rishikesh-Karnaprayag line is the major change, and is planned as a feeder to the Char Dham pilgrimage:

Item	Detail
Length	126 km with 12 stations
Structures	35 bridges and 17 tunnels; tunnels cover about 85% of the route
Longest tunnel	Devprayag-Lachmoli, 15.1 km
Progress	About 76% of physical work complete as of December 2025 (reference page)
Completion	Originally December 2026; reported as revised to December 2028

Roads and highways

The Char Dham Pariyojana (Char Dham Mahamarg Vikas Pariyojana) upgrades national highways connecting Rishikesh with Badrinath and Mana, Kedarnath, Gangotri and Yamunotri. The foundation stone was laid on 27 December 2016. A reference page gives the length as 889 km and the cost as about ₹12,000 crore, and says 75% (601 km out of 825 km) was complete by July 2023; the two length figures differ, so we give "about 825 to 889 km". The Supreme Court first accepted a 5.5 m carriageway in September 2020, after environmental objections to wider roads. It then allowed up to 10 m on 14 December 2021 after the defence ministry argued that army supply lines on the border roads needed it, and appointed an oversight committee under a former Supreme Court judge.

The Silkyara Bend-Barkot tunnel, which forms part of the highway system on the Yamunotri route, partly collapsed on 12 November 2023, trapping 41 workers. All 41 were brought out on 28 November 2023 after 17 days. The Delhi-Dehradun Expressway is reported at 213 km and more than ₹12,000 crore, cutting travel time from over six hours to about 2.5 to 3 hours; news reports say it was inaugurated in 2026, but we did not confirm the date. It includes the 340 m Datkali tunnel. A ropeway from Sonprayag to Kedarnath has been awarded (reported September 2025) and is projected to cut the journey to 36 minutes; the existing route is a trek of about 17 km from Gaurikund.

Airports and heliports

Airport	Details
Dehradun (Jolly Grant)	About 25 km south of Dehradun; established 1974; commercial operations from 30 March 2008 after runway extension; new terminal completed 2024, rated for 4.7 million passengers a year; about 1.87 million passengers in April 2025-March 2026
Pantnagar	Udham Singh Nagar district; owned by the state and run by the Airports Authority of India; runway of 1,372 m; IndiGo flights to Delhi and Noida reported; 71,656 passengers in April 2025-March 2026

Hazards and infrastructure

The same mountains make building dangerous. On 16 June 2013, a cloudburst and flood in Uttarakhand hit the Kedarnath valley and others, with about three lakh pilgrims and tourists reportedly stranded. Official accounts put the death toll at 6,054 as per a reference page, with more than 5,700 presumed dead in mid-July 2013; the figure is reported and varies between accounts. More than 110,000 people were evacuated by the air force, army and paramilitary. The temple reopened on 4 May 2014. In January 2023, cracks appeared in more than 600 buildings at Joshimath, a town of about 16,700 people (Census 2011) at 6,150 ft that serves Badrinath and Hemkund. Reports gave 678 cracked homes on 10 January and more than 860 structures later, with about 280 declared unsafe (one account). The cause is debated (unplanned construction, slope geology, water seepage and tunnelling for the Tapovan Vishnugad project have all been cited), and we do not state a settled cause.

For exam preparation

• The Char Dham highway project's foundation stone was laid on 27 December 2016.
• In December 2021 the Supreme Court allowed upgrading the project roads to a 10 m width for defence reasons.
• The Rishikesh-Karnaprayag line is about 126 km long, with 17 tunnels; Devprayag-Lachmoli at 15.1 km is the longest.
• Jolly Grant (Dehradun) and Pantnagar are the main airports.
• The Kedarnath disaster occurred on 16 June 2013; the temple reopened on 4 May 2014.
• The Silkyara tunnel collapse was on 12 November 2023; rescue was complete on 28 November.

Culture, tribes and heritage

Uttarakhand is called Devabhumi, "land of the gods", because of its pilgrimage places, and its culture is shaped by two historic regions, Garhwal in the west and Kumaon in the east, with a third strand in Jaunsar-Bawar and the border valleys. Folk culture is oral and ritual: songs sung to invoke gods, dances tied to weddings and harvests, village festivals and wall paintings drawn by women at home.

Languages and literature

Hindi is the official language, and Sanskrit has additional official status. The main regional languages are Garhwali and Kumaoni, with Jaunsari in the Dehradun hills and languages spoken by the Himalayan border communities. One reference page gives the language shares for the Kumaon division as Kumaoni 46.8% and Hindi 36.1%, with Punjabi 4.4% and Urdu 4.1% in the southern plains; these are division-level figures from census tabulation and should be used as indicative. Kumaon's Almora is described as its cultural capital. The mountains also produced a modern Hindi literary tradition, including the poet Sumitranandan Pant, listed among the state's notable people.

Tribes and social groups

Census 2011 recorded 291,903 Scheduled Tribe members, 2.9% of the population, in five notified tribes. The share of each is calculated against the tribal population.

Tribe	Population (Census 2011)	Share of ST population	Where found
Tharu	91,342	31.29%	Terai plains, mainly Udham Singh Nagar
Jaunsari	88,664	30.37%	Jaunsar-Bawar hills, Dehradun district
Buksa	54,037	18.51%	Not confirmed here
Bhotia	39,106	13.39%	High valleys of Chamoli and Pithoragarh, among others
Raji	690	0.24%	A Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group; location not confirmed here

Tharus and Jaunsaris together make over 61% of the tribal population. One reference page lists both Buksa and Raji as Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups; other sources list only the Raji, so we do not take a position on the Buksa.

Ritual and folk theatre

Jagar. Jagar (from the Sanskrit for "to wake") is a night-time ritual in Garhwal and Kumaon in which local gods are awakened to help a family or village with a problem. Three roles matter: the jagariya, the singer who invokes deities through ballads; the dangariya, the medium in whose body the deity is said to appear; and the syonkar, the host who has asked for the ritual. The music is made on the hurka (hourglass drum), dhol, damau and thali (a metal plate beaten as percussion). A ceremony can last from one to twenty-two days. It follows a sequence: evening invocations, songs praising the deities (birtwai), trance induction (ausan), guidance from Guru Gorakhnath and finally blessings and the gods' return to the heavens.

Ramman. Ramman is a ritual theatre festival held in the twin villages of Saloor-Dungra in Chamoli each April, centred on the temple of Bhumiyal Devta, the village's guardian god. It brings together a recitation of a version of the Ramayana and local legends, songs and masked dances. Members of the Bhandari community alone wear the sacred masks, including that of Narasimha, the man-lion form of Vishnu. UNESCO inscribed it on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2009.

Chholiya (Choliya). Chholiya is a sword dance of Kumaon, found especially in Almora, Bageshwar, Champawat and Pithoragarh and also in the Sudurpashchim province of Nepal. It was originally performed with a wedding procession, linked to a martial tradition in which the groom rode as a "kunwar" (prince) with a blade, and marriages were once ritually staged "at the point of the swords". Dancers wear white churidars and turbans and carry swords and brass shields; a full troupe is 22 people, 8 dancers and 14 musicians.

Festivals and fairs

Festival or fair	What it is
Nanda Devi Raj Jat	A pilgrimage of about 280 km over three weeks, held every 12 years in Chamoli, in which the goddess Nanda Devi is taken symbolically from her maternal home to her husband's, Kailash. A four-horned ram (chausingia khadu) leads it. The last full edition was in 2014. The 2026 edition was scheduled for 5-23 September but, according to a January 2026 report, one organising committee postponed to 2027 while another proceeded; check current affairs for the latest
Nanda Devi fair, Almora	An annual fair in honour of the goddess, listed among Kumaon's major fairs
Uttarayani fair, Bageshwar	A winter fair at Bageshwar linked to Makar Sankranti (mid-January), reported on a reference page
Harela	A Kumaoni festival marking the start of the monsoon sowing season, associated with planting green shoots; listed on a reference page
Phool Dei	A spring festival in which children place flowers on doorsteps, listed on a reference page
Ghee Sankranti	A harvest-season festival, listed on a reference page
Kumbh Mela, Haridwar	One of four Kumbh sites; held every 12 years at Haridwar. UNESCO inscribed the Kumbh Mela in 2017

Dates for Harela, Phool Dei, Ghee Sankranti and the fairs were not verified here; use official calendars. The Raj Jat ends at Homkund, with two processions, from Kurud and Kansuwa, meeting on the way.

Arts, crafts and GI tags

Aipan is a ritual wall and floor art of Kumaon. Women draw patterns in white rice-flour paste on a brick-red base called geru on walls, steps and the puja room. The designs are believed to invite divine power and keep misfortune away, and are made at festivals such as Ganesh Chaturthi, Makar Sankranti, Maha Shivaratri and Lakshmi Puja. Motifs include the Saraswati chowki (for children's learning), the Nav Durga chowki (nine dots) and the Lakshmi Yantra. Aipan received a GI certificate in September 2021, and the Minakriti project (started 2019) works to give rural women income from it.

Uttarakhand became the first state to receive GI certificates for 18 products in one day, on 4 December 2023, according to a news summary; a total of 27 products were then reported to hold GI tags. The earlier group named in that summary: tejpatta, Basmati rice, Bhotia dan (a woollen product), Aipan, chiura oil, Munsiyari white rajma, Ringal craft, and Tamra and Thulma. The 2023 group:

Category	Products
Hill food crops	Mandua (finger millet), jhangora, gahat dal, red rice, black bhatt, ramdana (amaranth), toor dal, Lakhauri chilli of Almora
Fruit and drink	Malta (orange), Ramnagar litchi, Nainital peach, Buransh (rhododendron) juice, Berinag tea
Crafts and fibre	Kandali (nettle) fibre, Nainital candle, Rangwali Pichhoda, Chamoli masks, Uttarakhand wood art

Ringal is a type of hill bamboo woven into baskets and mats, and the nettle fibre is spun into cloth. The state's drum music uses the dhol, damau and the ransingha (a curved horn); Kafuli (a green lentil-spinach dish), Bal mithai and jhangora kheer are among foods named on reference pages, along with the mountain staples mandua and rajma.

History in culture

Kumaon was ruled by the Katyuri dynasty between the 7th and 12th centuries and then by the Chands. Baz Bahadur of the Chand dynasty (1638-1678) is reported to have met Shah Jahan in Delhi and joined him against Garhwal in 1655. Gorkha rule lasted 24 years, 1790-1814, and the British annexed the hills after the Anglo-Nepal war of 1814-15. The Kumaon Regiment and the Garhwal Rifles carry the hills' military tradition; two natives of the hills, Gabar Singh Negi and Darwan Singh Negi, won the Victoria Cross in the Garhwal Rifles.

For exam preparation

• Ramman of Saloor-Dungra in Chamoli was inscribed by UNESCO in 2009; the deity is Bhumiyal Devta.
• The Nanda Devi Raj Jat is held every 12 years over about 280 km and features a four-horned ram.
• Chholiya is a Kumaoni sword dance performed with wedding processions.
• Jagar uses the hurka, dhol and damau; its key roles are the jagariya, dangariya and syonkar.
• Aipan is a Kumaoni rice-paste art on a geru base; it received a GI tag in September 2021.
• Uttarakhand received GI tags for 18 products on 4 December 2023.
• Census 2011 lists five Scheduled Tribes: Tharu, Jaunsari, Buksa, Bhotia and Raji.
• The Kumbh Mela was inscribed on the UNESCO list in 2017.

Tourism and places of interest

Tourism in Uttarakhand is built on three attractions: pilgrimage (the Char Dham, Haridwar and Rishikesh), wildlife and nature (Corbett, Rajaji, the Valley of Flowers), and hill stations (Mussoorie, Nainital). The state tourism department reported, according to a February 2026 news account, more than 6.03 crore tourists and pilgrims in 2025, the first time above six crore. The Char Dham yatra drew 4,617,445 devotees in 2024 in one account (a different account puts 2024 at 48.04 lakh) and over 48.30 lakh by October 2025.

The Char Dham

The Chota (small) Char Dham, the four Himalayan shrines of Yamunotri, Gangotri, Kedarnath and Badrinath, is the state's biggest annual draw. The shrines close in winter and reopen in summer (Gangotri closes after Diwali and reopens at Akshaya Tritiya), and the idols are carried down to winter seats:

Shrine	District	Altitude	Winter seat	Notes
Yamunotri	Uttarkashi	About 3,293 m	Kharsali	Source of the Yamuna; the shrine was built in 1839; hot springs at Janki Chatti; the glacier source on Kalind mountain is at 4,421 m
Gangotri	Uttarkashi	About 3,200 m	Mukhba	On the Bhagirathi; the temple was built by a Gorkha commander, Amar Singh Thapa, and restored in the 19th century
Kedarnath	Rudraprayag	3,583 m	Omkareshwar temple, Ukhimath	One of the twelve jyotirlingas of Shiva; first of the Panch Kedar; open April to November; trek of about 17 km from Gaurikund
Badrinath	Chamoli	3,133 m	Pandukeshwar (Joshimath is also named as its winter seat)	Dedicated to Vishnu; one of the 108 Divya Desams; Tapt Kund hot spring about 55 degrees C

The Bhagirathi from Gangotri and the Alaknanda from Badrinath meet at Devprayag, where the river is called the Ganga. Adi Shankara is believed to have attained mahasamadhi at Kedarnath, and his legacy includes the monastery at Joshimath (Jyotirmath), one of four he established.

National parks and UNESCO sites

• Jim Corbett National Park (Nainital district). Established in 1936 as Hailey National Park, covering about 324 sq km; renamed Ramganga National Park in the mid-1950s and then Corbett in 1955-56 after the hunter-turned-naturalist Jim Corbett. Today, the reserve covers about 1,288 sq km, with a core of 822 sq km and buffer of 466 sq km. It was where Project Tiger, launched on 1 April 1973 with nine reserves, was begun; one page dates the launch at Corbett to 1974, so the exact date is a known inconsistency. A 2022 count reported about 260 tigers in the park.
• Rajaji National Park. About 820.5 sq km across Haridwar, Dehradun and Pauri Garhwal districts in the Shivalik hills; a sanctuary in 1948, the merged national park in 1983 (Chilla, Motichur and Rajaji ranges), and a tiger reserve since 2015. It is known for Asian elephants.
• Nanda Devi and Valley of Flowers National Parks. A UNESCO World Heritage Site in Chamoli district: Nanda Devi National Park was inscribed in 1988 and the Valley of Flowers was added in 2005. The core zones are 630.33 sq km (Nanda Devi) and 87.50 sq km (Valley of Flowers), with a buffer zone of 514,286 hectares, and the site meets natural criteria (vii) and (x). The Valley of Flowers is known for alpine flowers, mostly in July and August.

Pilgrimage and towns

Place	District	Why it matters
Haridwar	Haridwar	Gateway to the Ganga plains; Har ki Pauri and the evening Ganga aarti; one of the Kumbh sites; Mansa Devi and Chandi Devi (built 1929) temples; Maya Devi temple (11th century); Census 2011 population 228,832
Rishikesh	Dehradun (municipal body)	Known as the yoga capital; Lakshman Jhula and Ram Jhula bridges; the Beatles' visit in 1968 to the ashram of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi; International Yoga Festival (annual since 1999, reported); rafting; Census 2011 population 70,499
Hemkund Sahib	Chamoli	A Sikh shrine to Guru Gobind Singh on a glacial lake (Wikipedia gives 4,572 m; other sources differ); trek from Govindghat to Ghangaria 13 km plus about 6 km; closed from October to April; about 150,000 pilgrims a year (reported)
Nainital	Nainital	Founded 1841; the lake and Naina Devi temple, a Shakti Peeth; judicial capital (High Court) at about 2,084 m; the 1880 landslide killed 151
Mussoorie	Dehradun	Called the Queen of the Hills; founded 1825 by Captain Frederick Young; Woodstock School (1854) and the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration; 3.02 million visitors in 2019 (reported)
Joshimath	Chamoli	Gateway to Badrinath and Hemkund; one of Adi Shankara's four monasteries; see the subsidence note above

Almora, Kausani and Munsiyari are well-known Kumaon destinations, but we did not verify details for them.

For exam preparation

• Corbett National Park was established in 1936 as Hailey National Park and renamed after Jim Corbett in 1955-56.
• Project Tiger began on 1 April 1973; Uttarakhand has two tiger reserves, Corbett and Rajaji.
• Nanda Devi National Park became a UNESCO site in 1988; the Valley of Flowers was added in 2005.
• The Chota Char Dham: Yamunotri, Gangotri, Kedarnath, Badrinath. Winter seats: Kharsali, Mukhba, Ukhimath, Pandukeshwar.
• Kedarnath stands at 3,583 m on the Mandakini; Badrinath at 3,133 m on the Alaknanda.
• The Kumbh Mela was added to UNESCO's intangible heritage list in 2017.

Education, health, sports and personalities

For a small state, Uttarakhand has an unusual concentration of national institutions, many of them inherited from the colonial period when Dehradun and Roorkee became centres for forestry, survey, military training and engineering. Literacy by Census 2011 was 78.82% overall, 87.40% for males and 70.01% for females, according to a reference page. The school system uses Hindi or English as the medium and affiliates to CBSE, CISCE or the state education department.

Institutions of national importance

Institution	Place	Facts
IIT Roorkee	Roorkee	Founded 1847 as the College of Civil Engineering to train engineers for the Ganges Canal; renamed Thomason College of Civil Engineering in 1854; University of Roorkee in 1949; became an IIT in 2001; main campus 365 acres
AIIMS Rishikesh	Rishikesh	Established 2012 as an Institute of National Importance; first MBBS batch of 50, intake later raised to 125; 960 beds in 2019; reported as India's first government heli-ambulance service, started October 2024
Forest Research Institute (FRI)	Dehradun	Began as the Forest School in 1878; Imperial Forest Research Institute from 1906; main building by C. G. Blomfield, inaugurated in 1926; deemed university since 1991; campus of 450 hectares with a museum
Wildlife Institute of India (WII)	Chandrabani, Dehradun	Established 1982 under the environment ministry; trains and researches wildlife management and conducts studies used for censuses; 180-acre facility
Indian Military Academy (IMA)	Dehradun	Founded 10 December 1932 on the Chetwode committee's recommendation; first batch, the Pioneers, passed out in December 1934 (40 cadets, including Sam Manekshaw); campus 1,400 acres; motto "Veerta aur Vivek"
G. B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology	Pantnagar	Inaugurated 17 November 1960 as the first agricultural university in independent India, on the land-grant model; renamed in 1972; tested Mexican wheat during the Green Revolution; campus 12,661 acres
Gurukula Kangri	Haridwar	Founded 1902; combines Vedic study with modern subjects

Other national bodies in the state, such as IIM Kashipur and the National Institute of Technology at Srinagar (Garhwal), are widely known, but we did not open pages to verify their details. The Doon School in Dehradun, Sherwood College in Nainital and Woodstock School in Mussoorie are among the best-known boarding schools.

Health

We did not obtain verified NFHS-5 indicators for this page. Structurally, major tertiary care is concentrated at AIIMS Rishikesh and the plains-city hospitals, hill districts depend on district hospitals and community health centres, and emergency transfer from the mountains by road is slow, which is why air ambulances and heli-evacuation have become part of the health plan for the Char Dham season. Health and family welfare is allocated ₹4,916 crore in the 2026-27 budget (PRS).

Sports

Uttarakhand became the host of the 38th National Games, held from 28 January to 14 February 2025 in seven cities with Dehradun as the main venue, a part of the state's silver jubilee year. The opening ceremony was held at the Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium in Dehradun before a crowd of about 25,000. The Games had 32 sporting disciplines and four demonstration events, with 28 states, eight union territories and the Services Sports Control Board participating. Maharashtra finished first with 54 gold medals and Haryana second with 48. The mascot was Mauli and the torch was called Tejaswini. Sportspeople linked to the state on a reference list include the mountaineer Bachendri Pal, who in 1984 became the first Indian woman to climb Mount Everest, shooter Jaspal Rana, shooter Abhinav Bindra, the Olympic gold medallist of 2008 in the 10 m air rifle event, and cricketer Rishabh Pant.

Notable people

Person	Known for
Govind Ballabh Pant	Freedom-movement and political leader from the hills; the agricultural university at Pantnagar and the Nainital zoo carry his name
Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna	Political leader from Garhwal; the Garhwal central university is named for him
Sumitranandan Pant	Hindi poet
Nain Singh Rawat	Surveyor honoured as the first person to survey Tibet for the British
Gabar Singh Negi and Darwan Singh Negi	Victoria Cross winners in the Garhwal Rifles
Gaura Devi	Led the Reni action of the Chipko movement in 1974
Sunderlal Bahuguna	Chipko leader, led the anti-Tehri dam movement from the 1980s to 2004
Chandi Prasad Bhatt	Founded the Dasholi Gram Swarajya Sangh in 1964
Jim Corbett	Naturalist and writer after whom the national park is named
Bachendri Pal	First Indian woman on Everest, 1984

For exam preparation

• IIT Roorkee began in 1847 as a college to train engineers for the Ganges Canal and became an IIT in 2001.
• The Indian Military Academy was founded on 10 December 1932.
• AIIMS Rishikesh was established in 2012.
• GBPUAT, Pantnagar, was the first agricultural university in independent India (1960).
• The Wildlife Institute of India was established in 1982; the Forest Research Institute's institution dates back to 1906.
• The 38th National Games were held in Uttarakhand from 28 January to 14 February 2025.
• Census 2011 literacy: 78.82% overall, 87.40% male, 70.01% female.

Government schemes

Uttarakhand runs its own welfare and livelihood schemes alongside the national programmes. We have verified that the schemes below exist, but we could not open the scheme guidelines, so the one-line eligibility notes are general and should be checked against the current official notification before applying. Amounts and eligibility change often, and no benefit figure is given here.

State schemes

Scheme	What it is	Eligibility pointer
Mukhyamantri Swarojgar Yojana (MSY)	State self-employment scheme; a reference page notes an allocation of ₹100 crore in one year	Aimed at young residents, including returning migrants, starting small enterprises; check the current rules
Gaura Devi Kanyadhan Yojana	Launched in 2006-07; gives incentive money to girls	Girls from eligible families; the family criteria are not confirmed here
Nanda Gaura Yojana	State scheme for girls listed in the state's scheme directory	Details not confirmed here
Atal Ayushman Uttarakhand Yojana	State health coverage scheme in the state's scheme directory	Check the official portal for the list of eligible families
Deen Dayal Upadhyay Griha Awas (Home Stay) Vikas Yojana	Supports owners who convert rooms in their homes into tourist homestays	Residents with suitable property in tourist areas

Central schemes in force in the state

Central programmes apply here as in other states, with the same national eligibility rules. In general terms, PM-KISAN pays income support to farmer families; Ayushman Bharat PM-JAY provides health insurance to eligible poor families; the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana funds rural roads, which are a lifeline for hill villages; and MGNREGA offers wage work to rural households. Because Uttarakhand borders China and Nepal, central border-village development schemes also apply to its frontier districts, but we did not verify their district lists, so they are not described here. For current guidelines, go to the scheme's official portal or see our /current-affairs page, as amounts and rules are revised by notification.

For exam preparation

• Gaura Devi Kanyadhan Yojana was launched in 2006-07 and gives an incentive to girls.
• The Mukhyamantri Swarojgar Yojana is the state's self-employment scheme.
• Atal Ayushman Uttarakhand Yojana is the state's health coverage scheme.
• The Home Stay Vikas Yojana is named after Deen Dayal Upadhyay and supports tourist homestays.
• Scheme names carry a leader's name, but the incumbent who runs them changes; use /current-affairs for the latest announcements.

Government exams in Uttarakhand

Government recruitment in Uttarakhand runs through three main doors. The Uttarakhand Public Service Commission (UKPSC) in Haridwar selects the state civil services, police sub-inspectors and other officer-level posts. The Uttarakhand Subordinate Service Selection Commission (UKSSSC) in Dehradun fills Group C posts: Patwari and Lekhpal, junior assistants, forest guards, police constables, and the clerical and stenographer staff of the subordinate courts. Teacher eligibility is tested through the Uttarakhand Teacher Eligibility Test (UTET). Notification dates, vacancy counts, fees and age limits change with every advertisement, so treat each figure below as a pointer and read the current notice before you apply. Where a figure comes from a prep or news site rather than an official document we opened, we write "reported". Where a notice was only seen through a search summary, we say so in the sources section.

For live openings see Uttarakhand government jobs. To practise under timed conditions, use our online test series. We do not yet have separate exam guide pages for the Uttarakhand exams, so this section is the reference. If you are comparing neighbouring states, see Uttar Pradesh and Haryana, whose Part D sections cover similar commissions.

Uttarakhand Public Service Commission (UKPSC)

The UKPSC is the constitutional body under Article 315, working from Gurukul Kangri, Haridwar. Wikipedia gives its founding as 15 May 2001 and its structure as a chairperson plus six members, appointed by the Governor. The homepage, opened on 4 October 2026, listed notices for the Combined State Civil/Upper Subordinate Services Examination-2026, a Veterinary Officers exam and Lecturer (Group C) recruitment, and exam names including Civil Judge, Chief Fire Officer and Assistant Conservator of Forest. We do not name the chairperson or any member; the incumbent changes, so see current affairs.

Combined State Civil / Upper Subordinate Services (PCS)

This is the flagship exam. Reported by prep sites, the 2026 notice offers posts such as Deputy Collector, Deputy Superintendent of Police, Finance Officer, Block Development Officer, Assistant Commissioner (State Tax), District Commandant and Treasury Officer. The list of services differs from year to year.

Reported dates for the 2026 cycle, from Drishti IAS and several job-listing sites (we could not open the official advertisement text):

Item	Reported
Advertisement	A-1/E-1/2026-27
Posts	67 (General 37, SC 13, OBC 11, EWS 6 as reported by one site)
Notification	9 September 2026
Online applications	9 to 29 September 2026
Correction window	7 to 16 October 2026
Prelims	29 November 2026 (reported by some sites; check the commission)
Age on 1 July 2026	21 to 42 years (reported)

The exam has three stages: Preliminary (objective), Main (written) and Interview. The pattern below is as published on Drishti IAS and consistent across the prep sites we saw. The Mains papers on the commission's notice may be worded differently.

Stage	Pattern (reported)
Prelims	Paper I General Studies: 150 questions, 150 marks, 2 hours. Paper II General Aptitude Test: 100 questions, 150 marks, 2 hours, qualifying at 33%. One-fourth mark deducted per wrong answer. Merit is decided on Paper I.
Mains	Eight papers of 3 hours each, 1,500 marks: General Hindi (150), Essay (150), General Studies I to VI (200 each). Papers V and VI are on Uttarakhand knowledge. A minimum of 35% is required in General Hindi.
Interview	150 marks

The UKPSC also runs the Lower Subordinate Services, Review Officer / Assistant Review Officer and Civil Judge exams; we have not verified their patterns.

Police sub-inspector and other officer posts

Reported by Careers360 and a search summary, the UKPSC advertised a recruitment in 2026 for Sub-Inspector (Civil Police/Intelligence), Platoon Commander and Fire Station Second Officer posts, with 222 vacancies. We did not open the official advertisement. The state notified the Uttarakhand Uniformed Sub-Inspector Direct Recruitment Selection Procedure Rules, 2025 on 11 September 2025 (reported by Punjab Kesari), covering Civil Police/Intelligence, Platoon Commander, Fire Service Second Officer, Deputy Jailor, Forest Range Officer and Excise Sub-Inspector. Check the notice for the stages.

Uttarakhand Subordinate Service Selection Commission (UKSSSC)

The UKSSSC was established on 17 September 2014 under the Uttarakhand Subordinate Service Selection Commission Act, 2014, with its headquarters in Dehradun (Wikipedia, cross-checked with the commission's homepage). It recruits Group C and other subordinate posts. On 4 October 2026, its homepage carried notices on Assistant Teacher (LT), Graduate-level Advertisement 70, Junior Assistant and Personal Assistant forms, court-staff posts, drivers, a scaler post and technical posts.

Graduate-level exam (Patwari/Lekhpal, VDO and similar)

The graduate-level exam fills posts such as Patwari/Lekhpal, Village Development Officer and Village Panchayat Development Officer. The exam under Advertisement No. 70/UKSSSC/2025 is the one most aspirants have followed, and its history matters:

• The written test was held on 21 September 2025, with about 1,05,000 candidates reported. Three pages of the paper were alleged to have circulated on WhatsApp, followed by statewide protests.
• The Chief Minister announced a CBI inquiry and a one-member commission of inquiry under a retired High Court judge. After the commission's report in October 2025, the state cancelled the exam and said it would be re-held within three months (reported by Careers360 and ETV Bharat).
• Careers360 and other prep sites report that the re-exam was held on 14 June 2026 for 416 vacancies, the result was declared on 21 July 2026, and Physical Standard and Efficiency tests were scheduled from 6 August 2026. We have not seen the official result document, so treat these as reported.

Intermediate-level and other Group C posts

Intermediate-level recruitment (12th pass) includes Junior Assistant, Scaler, Forest Guard and similar posts. A prep source gives the age bracket as 18 to 42 years for Junior Assistant, Scaler and Forest Guard, though another prep page lists Forest Guard as 18 to 28. These conflict; read the notice. Forest Guard is reported to use a 100-question, 100-mark paper with General Hindi, General Knowledge/General Studies and Uttarakhand-related information, plus physical standards. UKSSSC exams are generally computer-based or OMR objective tests; the negative-marking rule differs by advertisement and we have not confirmed a single figure.

Police constable

Careers360 reports a drive for 2,000 posts (1,600 Constable District Police and 400 Constable PAC/IRB), in which 2,545 candidates qualified the written stage for the Physical Measurement, Endurance and Efficiency Test (PMEET) at 17 centres, with document verification on 12 January 2026. The same source gives the male physical standards for the cycle as 165 cm height for General/OBC/SC, 160 cm for hill-area and 157.5 cm for ST candidates, and a 3-km run. Those standards vary by category and by gender; use the current notice. The Uttarakhand Uniformed Constable Direct Recruitment Selection Procedure Rules, 2025, notified on 11 September 2025, also cover Fireman, Jail Guard, Forest Guard, Excise Constable and Secretariat Guard posts (Punjab Kesari).

Uttarakhand High Court and subordinate court staff

Court-staff recruitment for the civil and family courts across the state is run by the UKSSSC, not the High Court itself. Reported by Testbook, Advertisement No. 78 of 2026 sought 398 posts: Junior Assistant (259) and Stenographer Grade-I / Personal Assistant (139). The age band was 21 to 35, the qualification a Bachelor's degree, Hindi typing 25 words per minute for Junior Assistant and shorthand 80 words per minute for stenographers. The selection was reported as a 140-mark written test of 2.5 hours plus a 60-mark skill test, with the written exam tentatively set for 23 August 2026. Sources disagree on application dates, and we cannot confirm the exam was held. Civil Judges come through the UKPSC.

Teacher recruitment and UTET

The Uttarakhand Teacher Eligibility Test (UTET) is the state eligibility test for primary (classes I to V, Paper I) and upper primary (classes VI to VIII, Paper II) teachers. A prep site reports that the 2025 round was scheduled for 27 September 2025, with registrations from 10 July to 5 August 2025, and that each paper has 150 multiple-choice questions of one mark in 150 minutes. The official portal (ukutet.com) loaded only a registration shell, so the conducting body is unconfirmed. Prep sources conflict on validity (lifetime or seven years); check the notification. Passing UTET only makes you eligible. Teaching posts such as Assistant Teacher (LT) are filled by separate recruitment, and the UKSSSC homepage listed an Assistant Teacher (LT) notice. Lecturer (Group C) recruitment appeared on the UKPSC homepage.

For exam preparation

• The UKPSC works from Haridwar and the UKSSSC from Dehradun.
• The UKPSC Mains has two Uttarakhand-specific General Studies papers (V and VI).
• The UKSSSC Act is 2014 and the commission was set up on 17 September 2014.
• PCS Prelims Paper II is qualifying; ranking uses Paper I.
• The UKPSC homepage lists a Civil Judge exam; court staff go through the UKSSSC.
• Read the advertisement for age, fee and negative marking.

Domicile, reservation and recruitment rules

Uttarakhand reserves most state posts through a permanent-resident test and vertical quotas (SC, ST, OBC, EWS), with horizontal quotas for women, statehood agitators, ex-servicemen, disabled persons and, since 2025, former Agniveers in uniformed posts. We could not find any 2025 law that rewrote the domicile test itself. What did change in 2025 was the rule-making for uniformed posts, the Agniveer quota, and a reported state crackdown on residence certificates issued to outsiders. Everything below is as on 4 October 2026 and should be checked against the advertisement you are applying to.

Domicile and who can apply

Soon after the state was formed, a government order made a permanent resident certificate (PRC) the proof for state-quota jobs and for reserved seats in state colleges (Tribune and Down To Earth, as summarised in search results). Prep and service sites describe the certificate as available after about 15 years of residence, to those with a permanent home in the state living elsewhere, and to women married to permanent residents. A prep site on UKSSSC eligibility reports two routes for the benefit of age relaxation and state-quota treatment: a permanent resident certificate from the SDM or Tehsildar, or having passed both Class 10 and Class 12 in Uttarakhand, with Employment Exchange registration mentioned as mandatory. We have not seen the government order itself, so this is reported.

The state's Economically Weaker Sections reservation Act (2019) is explicit on the point: its 10% quota goes to "permanent residents of the State of Uttarakhand" outside the SC, ST and OBC schemes. The Agniveer rules (2025) are also limited to permanent residents. In February 2025 the state government clarified that registration under the Uniform Civil Code is unrelated to the residence certificate (The Week, search summary). A Statesman report, which we could only see through a search summary and could not date, says the Chief Minister ordered a probe of residence certificates issued to migrants from other states and strict action against officials who issued them without valid papers.

Reservation percentages

Category	Share	Basis
Scheduled Castes	19%	Reported (a university policy page and prep sources)
Scheduled Tribes	4%	Reported
Other Backward Classes	14%	Reported
Economically Weaker Sections	10%	Uttarakhand Public Services (Reservation for EWS) Act, 2019, read in full
Women (domiciled)	30% horizontal	Act of 2022-23; see status below
Statehood agitators	10% horizontal	Act of August 2024; under challenge
Former Agniveers	10% horizontal, Group C uniformed posts	Rules notified 2025
Ex-servicemen	5% horizontal	Reported by one source, not verified

Disability reservation follows the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act; we do not quote a percentage because we did not verify one. The SC, ST and OBC figures are not from the statute text, which we could not open (the India Code PDF refused our request). The OBC share is the one most often misquoted, so confirm 14% in the notice.

The EWS Act sets a gross annual family income below Rs 8 lakh. A family is excluded if it holds 5 acres or more of agricultural land, a residential building of 1,000 sq ft or more, a residential plot of 100 sq yards or more in notified municipalities, or a plot of 200 sq yards or more elsewhere. EWS candidates who win on open merit are not counted against the quota.

Horizontal reservations and their legal status

Women, 30%. A state order giving a 30% horizontal quota to women domiciled in Uttarakhand was stayed by the High Court in August 2022 on a petition by candidates from outside the state, who argued it breached Article 16(2). On 4 November 2022 the Supreme Court (a bench of Justices S. Abdul Nazeer and V. Ramasubramanian) lifted that stay and issued notice. The Assembly passed the Uttarakhand Public Services (Horizontal Reservation for Women) Bill on 29 or 30 November 2022 (sources differ on the day), and the Governor gave assent on 10 January 2023 (Drishti IAS). A further challenge to Section 3(1) was reported in the High Court, which sought the state's reply. As on today we could not confirm a final ruling, so the quota is in force but the challenge is not confirmed closed.

Statehood agitators, 10%. The Governor gave assent to a bill giving 10% horizontal reservation in government jobs to participants in the statehood movement and their dependents in August 2024. In September 2024, the High Court, hearing a PIL, asked for the state's reply within six weeks, refused to stay the Act and asked for the data behind the quota (Business Standard and Deccan Herald summaries). We found no later outcome. Treat this quota as law but legally contested.

Former Agniveers, 10%. The cabinet approved this on 14 August 2025 (reported by All India Radio's news site). The Agniveer Horizontal Reservation Rules, 2025 were notified by the Personnel and Vigilance department (Drishti IAS, 2 September 2025). The quota applies to direct recruitment in Group C uniformed posts: police constable and sub-inspector, fire, jail, forest guard and ranger, excise and enforcement constable and secretariat guard. Reported benefits are an age relaxation equal to the service rendered and exemption from the physical efficiency test.

Age limits and relaxation

A prep site gives these bands for UKSSSC posts: 18 to 42 years for Junior Assistant, Scaler and Forest Guard, and 21 to 42 years for graduate-level posts such as VDO, VPDO and Patwari. The UKPSC 2026 PCS notice is reported at 21 to 42 on 1 July 2026. Court staff were reported at 21 to 35. Reported relaxations, which apply to Uttarakhand-domicile candidates only:

Category	Relaxation (reported)
SC, ST, OBC	5 years (upper limit 47)
Persons with disabilities	10 years (upper limit 52)
Ex-servicemen	Service period plus 3 years deducted from age
Dependants of freedom fighters	5 years

We could not verify the relaxation for women or statehood agitators and do not state one.

Selection stages and cycles

PCS: Prelims, Mains, Interview. Group C: written test, physical or skill tests where the post needs them, document verification, and for uniformed posts a medical check. Vacancy cycles are irregular. The 2025 graduate-level cancellation shows cycles can slip; watch the official site.

For exam preparation

• Reservation shares to remember: SC 19, ST 4, OBC 14, EWS 10.
• The EWS income ceiling in the 2019 Act is Rs 8 lakh a year.
• The women's quota is 30% horizontal, for women with Uttarakhand domicile.
• The statehood-agitator quota is 10% horizontal, Act of August 2024.
• The Agniveer quota is 10% horizontal, in Group C uniformed posts, with a permanent-resident condition.
• The Supreme Court lifted the stay on the women's quota on 4 November 2022.

How to use this guide for exam preparation

The Uttarakhand sections of this guide matter most for the state-specific papers: UKPSC Mains General Studies V and VI, the Uttarakhand portion of UKSSSC Group C papers, and the Prelims "state" questions. The national portion (polity, economy, science) comes from other sources. Use this guide to cover the state-specific layer that those sources skip.

Which sections give the most marks

• History and Political history and movements. Statehood movement, Chipko, 2 October 1994, 9 November 2000. High yield for PCS and Group C alike.
• Geography. Rivers, peaks, passes, glaciers, lakes, national parks. The most frequently asked block in Group C GK.
• Administration and districts. Districts, divisions, capitals, Panchayati Raj and local bodies.
• How the state is governed and Legislature. Assembly strength, Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha seats, High Court, constitutional bodies. These are easy marks when you know the numbers.
• Culture, tribes and heritage. Tribes, fairs, folk music, festivals, GI tags, temples.
• Economy, agriculture, forests, energy. Hydropower, horticulture, forest cover, census indicators. Mains GS-V and VI lean on these.
• Government schemes. Current schemes carry as-on dates, so confirm them in current affairs.
• This Part D. Commissions, reservation numbers and the rules above.

A four-week revision plan

Week	Focus	Task
1	History, movements, formation	Read history and political history; write a one-page timeline 1994 to 2007; attempt a short timed quiz.
2	Geography and districts	Make a map sheet of rivers, peaks, parks and districts; list divisions and headquarters.
3	Polity, economy, culture	Learn Assembly, Parliament and High Court numbers; schemes; tribes and festivals.
4	Exams and mock practice	Read Part D; take two full mocks from the online test series; review every wrong answer against the section.

Common traps

• Old names. The state was Uttaranchal until 1 January 2007.
• Capitals. Dehradun is the winter capital; Gairsain (Bhararisain) is the summer capital; the High Court sits in Nainital.
• Quota stacking. Horizontal quotas (women, agitators, Agniveers, ex-servicemen) cut across vertical categories. They do not add to the 100%.
• Reported figures. Prep sites often repeat each other. Check any vacancy, date or age figure against the official PDF.
• "Current" office-holders. Do not memorise today's names; they change. Learn the offices and how they are filled.
• Prelims versus Mains. PCS Prelims Paper II is qualifying only.

Rapid-fire facts

Static facts are cross-checked against Wikipedia's Uttarakhand page and general reference; exam figures carry the "reported" label.

Fact	Answer
Date of formation	9 November 2000
Number among Indian states	27th
Parent state	Uttar Pradesh
Original name	Uttaranchal
Renamed Uttarakhand	1 January 2007
Winter capital	Dehradun
Summer capital	Gairsain (Bhararisain), Chamoli
Seat of the High Court	Nainital
Divisions	2 (Garhwal and Kumaon)
Districts	13 (as on 4 October 2026)
Area	53,483 sq km
Population (Census 2011)	1,00,86,292
Sex ratio (Census 2011)	963 females per 1,000 males
Vidhan Sabha seats	70
Lok Sabha seats	5
Rajya Sabha seats	3
Legislature	Unicameral, no Vidhan Parishad
Official languages	Hindi; Sanskrit as second official language
Highest peak	Nanda Devi, about 7,817 m (Wikipedia)
State animal	Alpine musk deer
State bird	Himalayan monal
State flower	Brahma Kamal
Valley of Flowers region	Chamoli district
Rivers meeting at Devprayag to form the Ganga	Alaknanda and Bhagirathi
State tree	Burans (Rhododendron)
Largest city	Dehradun
Oldest national park	Jim Corbett, 1936
Park in the plains area	Rajaji National Park
UNESCO site in the state	Nanda Devi and Valley of Flowers National Parks
Chipko movement	Chamoli, 1970s
Char Dham	Yamunotri, Gangotri, Kedarnath, Badrinath
Confluence of Alaknanda and Bhagirathi	Devprayag
First State Chief Minister	Nityanand Swami
First Governor	Surjit Singh Barnala
Rampur Tiraha (Muzaffarnagar) firing	2 October 1994
UKPSC headquarters	Haridwar
UKPSC founded	15 May 2001 (Wikipedia)
UKPSC constitutional basis	Article 315
UKSSSC headquarters	Dehradun
UKSSSC Act	2014
UKSSSC established	17 September 2014
PCS Prelims Paper I	150 questions, 150 marks (reported)
PCS Mains Uttarakhand papers	General Studies V and VI (reported)
PCS Prelims negative marking	One-fourth mark (reported)
PCS Prelims Paper II	100 questions, 150 marks, qualifying (reported)
PCS Mains	8 papers, 1,500 marks (reported)
PCS interview marks	150 (reported)
PCS 2026 posts	67 (reported)
PCS 2026 prelims date	29 November 2026 (reported)
Constable drive in the 2025 cycle	2,000 posts (reported)
Court-staff drive, Advertisement 78 of 2026	398 posts (reported)
Graduate-level exam cancelled	21 September 2025 exam (reported)
Graduate-level re-exam	14 June 2026 (reported)
SC reservation	19%
ST reservation	4%
OBC reservation	14% (reported)
EWS reservation	10%
EWS income limit	Rs 8 lakh gross annual family income
EWS Act	Uttarakhand Public Services (Reservation for EWS) Act, 2019
Women horizontal quota	30% for domiciled women
Governor's assent to the women's bill	10 January 2023 (Drishti IAS)
Agitators' Act assent	August 2024
Supreme Court lifted the women's quota stay	4 November 2022
Statehood agitators' quota	10% horizontal
Agniveer quota	10% horizontal, Group C uniformed posts
Agniveer cabinet approval	14 August 2025
Court-staff typing speed	25 words per minute, Hindi (reported)
Court-staff written test	140 marks, 2.5 hours (reported)
Court-staff exam conducted by	UKSSSC
Civil Judge exam conducted by	UKPSC
Constable drive 2025-26, PAC/IRB posts	400 (reported)
Constable drive 2025-26, District Police posts	1,600 (reported)
UTET papers	Paper I (I-V) and Paper II (VI-VIII)
UTET questions per paper	150 (reported)
Graduate-level age limit	21 to 42 (reported)
PCS 2026 age limit	21 to 42 on 1 July 2026 (reported)
SC/ST/OBC age relaxation	5 years, domiciled candidates (reported)
Constable height, General/OBC/SC (cycle reported)	165 cm
Constable height, ST	157.5 cm (reported)
Forest Guard paper	100 questions, 100 marks (reported)
Domicile document	Permanent resident certificate (PRC)
PRC issued by	SDM or Tehsildar (reported)

Frequently asked questions

Who conducts the Uttarakhand PCS exam?

The Uttarakhand Public Service Commission (UKPSC), headquartered at Gurukul Kangri, Haridwar.

What is the UKPSC PCS Prelims pattern?

Reported: Paper I (General Studies) of 150 questions and 150 marks, and Paper II (General Aptitude Test) of 100 questions and 150 marks, each in two hours. Paper II is qualifying at 33%, and one-fourth mark is deducted per wrong answer.

How many posts did the 2026 PCS notification have?

Reported: 67, notified on 9 September 2026, with the application window closing on 29 September 2026. Confirm on the commission's site.

Which body recruits Patwari and Lekhpal?

The UKSSSC, through its graduate-level exam.

What happened to the 2025 graduate-level exam?

The exam held on 21 September 2025 was cancelled after paper-leak allegations, a CBI inquiry announcement and a one-member inquiry commission report. Reported: it was re-held on 14 June 2026.

Is Uttarakhand domicile compulsory for state jobs?

Reservation benefits, including the EWS, women's and Agniveer quotas, are for permanent residents or domiciled candidates. Many reported age relaxations also need domicile. Whether a particular post is open to outsiders depends on its rules; read the notice.

What is a permanent resident certificate?

It is the state's proof of permanent residence, issued by revenue officers such as the SDM or Tehsildar (reported). It is the usual document for the state quota.

What is the reservation in Uttarakhand state services?

SC 19%, ST 4%, OBC 14% (reported) and EWS 10%, plus horizontal quotas for women, statehood agitators, former Agniveers in uniformed posts and ex-servicemen.

Is the 30% quota for women valid?

It is in force under a 2022-23 Act. The Supreme Court lifted the stay on the earlier order on 4 November 2022, and a High Court challenge to the Act was reported; we could not confirm a final ruling.

Is the 10% quota for statehood agitators valid?

The Act received the Governor's assent in August 2024. In September 2024 the High Court refused to stay it while it examined a PIL. We found no later outcome.

What is the Agniveer quota?

A 10% horizontal quota in direct recruitment to Group C uniformed posts for former Agniveers who are permanent residents, with age relaxation and a physical test exemption (reported).

What is the age limit for Uttarakhand government jobs?

It varies by post: reported bands are 18 to 42 for intermediate-level posts, 21 to 42 for graduate-level posts, and 21 to 35 for court staff. Relaxation for SC, ST and OBC is reported at 5 years for domiciled candidates.

Who recruits police constables and sub-inspectors?

Constables through the UKSSSC. For sub-inspectors, a 2026 UKPSC advertisement was reported; check the notice.

Who recruits staff for Uttarakhand courts?

The UKSSSC recruits Junior Assistants and Stenographers for the civil and family courts. Civil Judges come through the UKPSC.

What is UTET?

The Uttarakhand Teacher Eligibility Test, with Paper I for classes I to V and Paper II for classes VI to VIII.

Sources and verification

Time-sensitive facts (budget, exam rules, domicile and reservation law, recruitment cycles) were checked on 4 October 2026. Where sources disagreed or a figure came from a single secondary source, the text says so. Election figures are Wikipedia reproductions of Election Commission data, with the 2026-27 budget from PRS Legislative Research; cross-check Election Commission results before quoting a number in an answer. Census 2011 is the latest published census.

Facts verified on 4 October 2026. We opened the UKPSC and UKSSSC homepages, one prep source for the PCS notice and pattern, and several news and prep pages. Official advertisement PDFs were not available to us as text, so most exam figures are marked "reported".

• Uttarakhand Public Service Commission homepage (psc.uk.gov.in), 4 October 2026.
• Uttarakhand Subordinate Service Selection Commission homepage (sssc.uk.gov.in), 4 October 2026.
• Uttarakhand Public Services (Reservation for Economically Weaker Sections) Act, 2019 (Act 7 of 2019), PRS Legislative Research copy, read in full.
• Drishti IAS: UKPSC exam pattern page, the UKPSC PCS 2026 notification blog, the Agniveer reservation rules page and the women's reservation Assent page.
• LiveLaw, Supreme Court order of 4 November 2022 on the women's quota stay.
• All India Radio news site (newsonair.gov.in), Agniveer quota cabinet approval of 14 August 2025.
• Punjab Kesari English, SI and constable rules notified 11 September 2025.
• Careers360 pages on the 2025 constable result and the UKSSSC Patwari result 2026, and the Careers360 UKSSSC recruitment overview.
• Testbook, Uttarakhand High Court (court staff) recruitment 2026.
• A prep site on UKSSSC eligibility and age relaxation (mysarkarinaukri.com).
• Wikipedia, as a cross-check only: Uttarakhand, Uttarakhand Public Service Commission and Uttarakhand Subordinate Service Selection Commission.
• ukutet.com, which loaded only a registration shell.
• Search-result summaries only (full pages not opened): The Statesman reports on the exam cancellation and on the residence-certificate probe, ETV Bharat on the inquiry commission report, Business Standard, Deccan Herald and The Week on the agitators' quota and residence-certificate statement, a university reservation-policy page for the SC/ST/OBC split, and a prep-site summary of UTET 2025.